Seduction in Popular Culture, Psychology, and Philosophy 2016017811, 9781522505259, 9781522505266, 9781522505198, 9781522502289, 9781522500896, 9781466699892, 9781466699861

Table of contents :
Title Page
Copyright Page
Book Series
Editorial Advisory Board and List of Contributors
Table of Contents
Detailed Table of Contents
Preface
Section 1: Foundations
Chapter 1: The Seduction of Science
Chapter 2: Seduction, Rationality, and Willpower
Chapter 3: On Seduction
Section 2: Seduction Imagined in Popular Culture
Chapter 4: Everybody's Got a Hungry Heart
Chapter 5: Seduction and Mutually Assured Destruction
Chapter 6: Horror's Seduction through Art
Chapter 7: Postmodern Cinema of Seduction
Section 3: Uses of Seduction
Chapter 8: Seduction in Works of Art
Chapter 9: Seduction and Surprise
Chapter 10: Social Psychology
Chapter 11: Rhetoric of Seduction
Chapter 12: Scepticism and Seduction
Compilation of References
About the Contributors
Index
Optional Back Ad

Citation preview

Seduction in Popular Culture, Psychology, and Philosophy Constantino Martins Nova University of Lisbon, Portugal Manuel Damásio Lusófona University, Portugal

A volume in the Advances in Psychology, Mental Health, and Behavioral Studies (APMHBS) Book Series

Published in the United States of America by IGI Global Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global) 701 E. Chocolate Avenue Hershey PA 17033 Tel: 717-533-8845 Fax: 717-533-8661 E-mail: [email protected] Web site: http://www.igi-global.com Copyright © 2017 by IGI Global. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or distributed in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without written permission from the publisher. Product or company names used in this set are for identification purposes only. Inclusion of the names of the products or companies does not indicate a claim of ownership by IGI Global of the trademark or registered trademark. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Martins, Constantino, 1974- editor. | Dam?asio, Manuel Jos?e, editor. Title: Seduction in popular culture, psychology, and philosophy / Constantino Martins and Manuel Damasio, editors. Description: Hershey : Information Science Reference, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016017811| ISBN 9781522505259 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781522505266 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Seduction--Psychological aspects. | Seduction--Philosophy. | Seduction in art. | Popular culture. Classification: LCC HV6584 .S435 2016 | DDC 364.15/3--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn. loc.gov/2016017811 This book is published in the IGI Global book series Advances in Psychology, Mental Health, and Behavioral Studies (APMHBS) (ISSN: pending; eISSN: pending) British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. All work contributed to this book is new, previously-unpublished material. The views expressed in this book are those of the authors, but not necessarily of the publisher.

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Editorial Advisory Board José Gomes Pinto, Universidade Lusófona, Portugal Domingo Hernández Sánchez, Universidad de Salamanca, Spain

Table of Contents

Preface. ............................................................................................................... xiv ;

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Section 1 Foundations ;

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Chapter 1 The Seduction of Science: How Paradigms Can Lead One Astray........................ 1 Ben Trubody, University of Gloucestershire, UK ;

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Chapter 2 Seduction, Rationality, and Willpower................................................................. 34 Adrien Barton, Osaka University, Japan ;

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Chapter 3 On Seduction: A Romantic Conversation............................................................. 58 Simber Atay, Dokuz Eylül University, Turkey ;

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Section 2 Seduction Imagined in Popular Culture ;

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Chapter 4 Everybody’s Got a Hungry Heart: Kierkegaard and Hitchcock........................... 77 Constantino Pereira Martins, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal ;

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Chapter 5 Seduction and Mutually Assured Destruction: The Modern “Femme Fatale” in “Gone Girl”. ..................................................................................................... 90 Ana Cabral Martins, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal ;

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Chapter 6 Horror’s Seduction through Art: Death Representation..................................... 112 Teresa Lousa, University of Lisbon, Portugal ;

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Chapter 7 Postmodern Cinema of Seduction: Subaltern/Folk-Inspired Hindi Film Song and Dance, and the Art of Deferral and Play...................................................... 130 Reena Dube, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, USA ;

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Section 3 Uses of Seduction ;

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Chapter 8 Seduction in Works of Art.................................................................................. 165 Laura González, The Glasgow School of Art, UK ;

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Chapter 9 Seduction and Surprise: Discovering Invisible Emotions for . Commitments. .................................................................................................... 188 Dina Mendonça, Instituto de Filosofia da Nova, Portugal ;

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Chapter 10 Social Psychology: The Seduction of Consumers.............................................. 206 John G. Wilson, Assumption University, Thailand ;

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Chapter 11 Rhetoric of Seduction: From an Iconocratic Advertising to a Tautological Culture................................................................................................................ 232 Paulo M. Barroso, Higher School of Education – Viseu, Portugal ;

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Chapter 12 Scepticism and Seduction................................................................................... 259 Cesar Kiraly, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil ;

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Compilation of References............................................................................... 297 ;

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About the Contributors.................................................................................... 325 ;

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Index. ................................................................................................................. 328 ;

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Detailed Table of Contents

Preface. ............................................................................................................... xiv ;

;

Section 1 Foundations ;

;

Chapter 1 The Seduction of Science: How Paradigms Can Lead One Astray........................ 1 Ben Trubody, University of Gloucestershire, UK ;

;

;

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This chapter aims to give an account of paradigmatic science as retold through Jean Baudrillard’s concept of ‘seduction’. Using concepts developed by Thomas Kuhn and Jean Baudrillard it will be argued that ‘seduction’ as understood by Baudrillard can be found at varying levels of the scientific enterprise. The two main features of Baudrillard’s seduction are ‘ambiguity and ‘reversibility’, where we cannot be sure who is seducing who (ambiguity), where each seeks to become the other (reversibility), but in doing so only highlights their differences. In terms of Kuhn’s work the more the paradigm seeks to become identical with the world, the more it begins to collapse under the weight of its own anomalies and stand out from the world. Yet when a paradigm is at its height we cannot be sure whether ‘nature’ looks the way it does because the paradigm demands it or that nature is leading science to postulate said paradigm? These themes will be examined at the metaphysical, psychological and social levels of science. ;

Chapter 2 Seduction, Rationality, and Willpower................................................................. 34 Adrien Barton, Osaka University, Japan ;

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This chapter starts by providing a definition and a basic taxonomy of actions of seduction, and clarifies some links between seduction and manipulation. It then considers Eric Cave’s thesis that actions of seduction are problematic if they alter motives by hampering rational capacities, in particular when they lack transparency. The chapter challenges this view by arguing that there are no intrinsically rational cognitive capacities, and that the non-transparency of some triggers of attraction may

actually be valuable. Therefore, the ethical focus should not be on supposedly rational capacities, but rather on willpower capacities: a seduction process that would deplete such capacities would be seriously problematic. Such a depletion should however be distinguished from other seduction strategies that aim at increasing or decreasing various desires without impairing willpower capacities. The chapter concludes by proposing a general framework for evaluating the morality of an action of seduction.

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Chapter 3 On Seduction: A Romantic Conversation............................................................. 58 Simber Atay, Dokuz Eylül University, Turkey ;

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Seduction is a sexual act, a sex instinct expression, a love practice, a body performance, a psychoanalytical problematic, a philosophical issue, a creative strategy full of phantasies from art to politics, from advertising to entertainment, from personal intimacy to mass-media. Seduction is basis of strip-tease profession, of course! But it is also a cultural metaphor. Seduction is an indispensable part of acting in performing arts. In cinema, actors and actress seduce spectators. In photography, photographer and photographed one, they seduce reciprocally. Seduction has very strong mythological origins. On the other hand, superman of Nietzsche, gaze of Bataille, objet petit a of Lacan are some adequate contemporary parameters to discuss the seduction concept. In this context, Le Samuraϊ (1967) of Jean-Pierre Melville, Magic Mike (2012) of Steven Soderbergh, Jupiter Ascending (2015) of Lana and Andy (Lilly) Wachowski are our cinematographic examples. Eikoh Hosoe’s project ‘Barakei’ (1961), Duane Michals’ project ‘Questions without Answers’ (2001), Mehmet Turgut’s self-portrait series (2000’s) are our photographic examples. Within the text, we evaluate all these popular culture examples by using the mentioned parameters to describe what the seduction is. ;

Section 2 Seduction Imagined in Popular Culture ;

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Chapter 4 Everybody’s Got a Hungry Heart: Kierkegaard and Hitchcock........................... 77 Constantino Pereira Martins, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal ;

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The text is a reflection on seduction in its primordial meaning: men and women. We support our analysis in the confrontation of Kierkegaard concepts and the film Vertigo. In this sense, more than seduction itself, it’s the notion of figure or conceptual character that is focused. The figural assumes here a mode and a process of reading a particular way of the aesthetic, i.e., a form of life that corresponds to the seducer. What is a seducer? Are there different types of seducers? We will present the formal basic premises of Kierkegaard and try to show how Hitchcock’s movie mirrors it, amplifying the categories in use to the unveil a new sort of seducer. ;

Chapter 5 Seduction and Mutually Assured Destruction: The Modern “Femme Fatale” in “Gone Girl”. ..................................................................................................... 90 Ana Cabral Martins, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal ;

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In cinema, the most prevalent representation of the figure of the seductress has been the femme fatale or the “vamp”. This chapter will explore the femme fatale in various incarnations in American cinema throughout its history. This chapter will also overview several definitions of femme fatale, and its connection with sex, seduction and destruction, in cinema’s history, principally the American silent film’s “vamp”, personified by the actress Theda Bara; and the 1940s film noir’s femme fatale, personified by actresses such as Rita Hayworth and Barbara Stanwyck. In an attempt to trace a connection between different embodiments of the femme fatale in American cinema, this chapter will focus, in particular, on David Fincher’s cinematic adaptation of the pulp fiction novel Gone Girl (2012), by Gillian Flynn. Not only does Gone Girl (David Fincher, 2014) offer one of the most recent interpretations of the traditional film noir trope, it also provides a modern update of the femme fatale. ;

Chapter 6 Horror’s Seduction through Art: Death Representation..................................... 112 Teresa Lousa, University of Lisbon, Portugal ;

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Regarding the horror is possible to identify a paradox: the binomial repulsion and attraction. Art has always had a privileged role in Horror’s representation, being a favorable medium to its transfiguration. The idea that beauty was an unshakable criteria of artistic representation is quite naive, particularly if we think about the artistic production since modernity. Not only art represented the horror and the macabre since immemorial times, but it also has been a way of reflection about death, the most inscrutable mystery of life. The Abject Art, for instance, search for a lost and desired territory: the body without guilt. Revealing the eschatological nature of the body, several contemporary artistic works put the spectator in constant ambiguity between pleasure and pain, desire and disgust, namely when such works use the death body as an artistic material, breaking, in a fatal seduction, the most feared of the social taboos. ;

Chapter 7 Postmodern Cinema of Seduction: Subaltern/Folk-Inspired Hindi Film Song and Dance, and the Art of Deferral and Play...................................................... 130 Reena Dube, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, USA ;

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If there is one phrase that has been used most often by Western audiences for popular Indian cinema, it is the phrase “musicals.” The description gestures both at the fixation of Indian cinema on an earlier stage of cinematic evolution and the simple

and uncomplicated pleasure derived by the audience from popular Hindi films that have an audience all over the world. This essay examines Hindi film “song and dance” spectacles as the art of deferment in the postmodern cinema of seduction, a notion derived from the work of Jean Baudrillard and the insights of Freud-Lacan-Zizek and Baudrillard himself on deferral and seduction. This chapter makes this claim not as an overarching theoretical nomenclature for all song and dance sequences in Hindi films. Instead the author argues for the primacy of the art of deferment and play in a postmodern cinema of seduction within the limited scope of her reading of a North Indian subaltern/folk-inspired song and dance Hindi film, Amol Palekar and Sandhya Gokhale directed Paheli. ;

Section 3 Uses of Seduction ;

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Chapter 8 Seduction in Works of Art.................................................................................. 165 Laura González, The Glasgow School of Art, UK ;

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What is it about certain things that occupy our thought until we get hold of them, until we somehow possess them? Why is it that we hopelessly, predictably, inevitably fall for certain works of art? What is it about certain objects that seduce us? This chapter seeks to study the seductiveness of objects, something that also preoccupied Jean Baudrillard and is found at the core of his thinking. The work studies a very particular kind of object: the work of art, although consumption and captology, designed objects and other types of objecthood are also used as examples. The perspective adopted here, however, is not related to the historical or economic contexts of the objects. The truth about seduction will not be sought (it would deceive, anyway); or, indeed, an interpretation for the purposes of academic knowledge, which would kill it; or, again, its representation, which would be a flawed and false undertaking, if not impossible. ;

Chapter 9 Seduction and Surprise: Discovering Invisible Emotions for . Commitments. .................................................................................................... 188 Dina Mendonça, Instituto de Filosofia da Nova, Portugal ;

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The chapter explores the meaning of seduction from a situated approach to emotions by tracing the way surprise uncovers emotional traits that enable commitment. The adoption of a Situated Approach reveals how emotions are intrinsically tied to the situations from which they arise and the crucial role of surprise. The emotion of surprise is central for the value of experience because it amplifies other emotions as well as other traits, and details of the lived situations fixing the meaning of the lived experience. The examination of how various emotions belong to the family of

surprise further explains the established differences between persuasion, manipulation and seduction. Ultimately the chapter shows that seduction asks for the recognition of various layers of emotional reality, and how they are made visible by the way in which seduction establishes commitments. ;

Chapter 10 Social Psychology: The Seduction of Consumers.............................................. 206 John G. Wilson, Assumption University, Thailand ;

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In this chapter, we investigate the recent situation concerning the seduction of consumers by advertising and the media. A new plethora of media-organised conglomerates is attempting to monopolise our attention and steer our emotions, opinions and choices towards increased consumption through imposed wants in the interest of gross profits for a semi-invisiblised few. Herein we consider: the colonisation of public places (advertising), the work/spend cycle, increased work at the cost of leisure; impression management, status-conscious and conspicuous consumption, reflective versus pre-reflective thinking in consumer choices, the early recruitment of children, how human emotions can become the fuel of overconsumption, classbased emotions and fashion consumption, obsessions with body image, the evasion and silencing of criticism by the corporate media. The approach is one founded in critical theory - a perspective that describes the individual as reciprocally constituted by the society in which she lives, rather than as a passive entity existing prior to socialisation. It seeks to reveal the seduction of our subjectivities (running marketing strategies ‘from within’) as contrasted with the value-free, ‘objective’ approach of much contemporary social psychology. Contemporary theoreticians in sociology and consumer studies, including Pierre Bourdieu and Juliet Schor, are cited along with deeper philosophical perspectives from the earlier philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre, complete with references from contemporary books and journals. ;

Chapter 11 Rhetoric of Seduction: From an Iconocratic Advertising to a Tautological Culture................................................................................................................ 232 Paulo M. Barroso, Higher School of Education – Viseu, Portugal ;

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Contemporary Western and industrialized societies have a profusion of messages with seductive and appealing meanings. Signs and images are used in advertising. They surround us to our consumption, satisfaction, pleasure, comfort, happiness, or social success. Their meanings comprise epidictic and apodictic messages of seduction. This chapter is about techniques of persuasion and effective communication through signs and images of advertising. Following a reflexive methodology, based on a theoretical research, the main objective is to understand how these techniques are more and more improved and able to develop new visual and popular forms of life, demonstrating that seduction is all about signs and images, i.e. it is a semiosis process of being able to send messages and read them accordingly. ;

Chapter 12 Scepticism and Seduction................................................................................... 259 Cesar Kiraly, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil ;

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This is the course we intend to follow: to put together the specific features of sceptical seduction and see the means it employs as well as, when possible, pointing out the changes in direction made by the sceptical tradition. At the same time, we believe that this kind of seduction can have possible political implications when it is compared with the immorality caused by dogmatic seduction. By this is meant that we seek to show that the kind of seduction exercised by sceptics appears to us to be better than that practised by dogmatists, especially with regard to its effects on political life. Setting out from the factors outlined here, we seek to show that the kind of seduction practised by dogmatists tends to lack any sense of responsibility towards the seduced through the protection granted to the seducer who is regarded as better or even superior in the way that the cruelty of the seduction is concealed. It seems to us that the seduction practised by the sceptic maintains an explicit form of cruelty and thus does not bring about the effects of immorality on people’s lives. ;

Compilation of References............................................................................... 297 ;

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About the Contributors.................................................................................... 325 ;

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Index. ................................................................................................................. 328 ;

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xiv

Preface

Seduction is usually regarded as a natural part of the male/female process, and it is associated with the idea of deceit. This concept has a wide range of figurations and applications but the main goal here will be to expand the natural understanding of this thematic concept, showing its multiple range and variety of approaches in the political, philosophical, psychological and artistic perspectives. The book Seduction in Popular Culture, Psychology, and Philosophy presents a collection of academic essays that cover different areas and forms of access to the topic, in the attempt to show the strength, as well as the complexity, of a concept that is part of everyone’s daily life. This book looks to discuss this vast notion in three main different perspectives. How was this concept addressed in the history of philosophy? This means addressing different authors and fields of investigation. Is there a more vital impact of the concept in Rhetoric than in Political Philosophy? Or is it mainly a moral concept? Is there a vital ethical polarity in seduction regarding temptation? Or is seduction a different form of thinking power? Within the history of ideas there is a wide platform of reflection from Politics to Science, or advertising and consumption. Seduction, and more specifically seduction intended as manipulation and enticement, plays a crucial role in rhetoric and ethics. What is the boundary between persuasion and manipulation? What counts as deceit and what is a legitimate and acceptable persuasion process? Ethical and logical issues are involved in defining this subtle and often tricky line. History is full of seducers. Some are more evident than others. The challenge is also to question art, departing form the concept of seduction. All the possible interpretations, its amplitude and connections, will allow to enlighten the concept, as seduction itself could be interpreted as a form of art. We aim here to go beyond the strict interpretation that would be directly related to sex, relationships, or in the extreme related to Psychosis, trauma and desire. The focus of the book is much wider, as it addresses the psychological mechanisms triggered by manipulation, advertising, emotions and decision. This means to question the borders of rationality and emotion and the role of seduction in this process.

Preface

The concept of Seduction is something of daily use but has not been addressed in terms of its multiplicity in the academic field. It’s a general concept that has multiple access doors that we intend to present in a systematic and condensed proposal that could be a referential title for those who wish to study this concept. This means to build a reference anchor, that would constitute a valid starting point of study. From Philosophy to Politics and Cinema, the general goal would be to give the readers a broader perspective of the topic and a solid doorway, hopefully a gate. Since there is nothing published that one could compare to, this book could constitute a multidisciplinary entrance with both academic range and general interest for a broader scope of readers. Although seduction is an invisible, but operative, concept in the construction of our present societies, it’s expected that this range of articles can build a possible key of interpretation for the outcome of the XXI Century. And why, or how, can this be true? Because the present time is obsessed with the new and the novelty. In a certain sense, those notions are the heart of the seduction process. We could also interpret it in the perfect opposite way: there is a certain boredom that needs to constantly refreshed by the new. The seduction is by this state of affairs a condition, simultaneously cause and effect, of the general state of boredom. It goes without saying that this is generally true regarding our western societies. More specifically, boredom means the need of people to feel alive. Has the proverbial humor says: and now for something completely different. It’s a sort of civilizational trilogy: enter, delete and refresh. Even when the old becomes new. An infernal cycle of boredom. No way out? Delete and refresh. The new is an obsession also towards age, or even better, aging. With all the death figures away from sight, it’s the image that becomes central. And a specific image: Youth. That is an exact conceptual correspondent of the new. We begin this new Century with a war inside our borders: old against new or vice-verse. The main role of the Media shows exactly this problem: the old and new generation war is a war of images. Sex sells such as violence, but let’s make it new. New wars, new sex, new everything. A new world is at your disposal. With this image, of course, comes selling the image. Seduction becomes desire. A new face, a new body, a new soul? Maybe someday. The desire to be someone else, to be somewhere else. Plastic surgery is obviously the top of the iceberg, reflecting this desire to be new, and to belong to a new world that doesn’t have wrinkles. One could say that there is nothing wrong with this new age, it’s just how things are. An old argument in a new world. But, is there really a problematic state of things to be questioned? First of all, let’s consider the implications, that ironically affects the youngest of the young: children. The overload of the new has a direct impact on the attention and focus of the children. This factor is widely studied by science and has a particular interest in the studies of Stiegler. What is at stake here is that the overload of the image, advertising and other phenomena, causes a deficit of attention and concentration. I would risk a xv

Preface

more radical interpretation: it causes desensitization. Not be sensible to yourself and to others. And even more radically, the dehumanization. This could mean a latent desire for a general war that would become a rupture in the present way of life. Because boredom, as we know, is, beyond a certain point, unbearable. Recovering the new transfigured in youth, we witness a certain capture of this new generations, not only in desire and seduction, but specifically in consumption. People aren’t just young, they are new consumers. This is a profound problem for the interpretation of Youth in general biological human terms. We are young; are you free? I believe this is not an alarmist perspective but, on the contrary, a merely observation of the facts. The surface as become our paradigm of the present. The surface of screens, skin, phones, computers, planet, etc. What, or, are there any consequences to this new paradigm? The death of the deep is one of them. The exclusion of others is also obvious. Other things and other people. The dehumanization is the isolation. There are a lot of beautiful and important things that need time, patience to see and listen. These things are the most important in the world: friendship, love, children, nature. The list is long. And they aren’t on the surface. But, there simply isn’t enough time for this. It’s just a Softwar. With a specific software: be quick, no time for it. Beyond the negativity of seduction, in general terms, remains the critical effort of this book in a proposal of reflection about a concept that, submerged in oblivion, is still very active and alive in its practice. Its overexposed and paradoxically hidden. The lightness of the softwar deceives the gravity of the war. It’s always hard to separate seduction from manipulation. Maybe the answer is in this book. Maybe you, the reader, can discover important things in this book. If you have the time for it. Maybe it can seduce you to read more. This is a book about seduction. About the many ways seduction can be understood, either as a social and individual practice, a psychological trait or a schema for manipulation. This is a book about the many forms the concept can assume in popular culture, and the many ways psychological and philosophical thought have dwelt with it. This is a book about the ways seduction is embodied in many of our contemporary artistic forms, from cinematic expressions to literary horror pieces. But this is also a book about the implications the concept of seduction has at the more varied levels, ranging from moral and cognitive terrains to the societal construction of processes of individual media consumption or exposition to media messages. The book starting point is clearly the assumption that it is not possible to understand the works of seduction unless one understands why so many are seduced. Seduced by other. Seduced by images and works of art. Seduced by themselves or their imagined selves. This is why the book different chapters are in some cases more focused towards the epistemological exploitation of the concept, while others assume that is not possible to accurately define the term without previously study its different manifestations. xvi

Preface

The different authors present in this book approach the concept in various manners that, considered as a whole, clearly contribute to a better understanding of the concept and call for further research on it. One could not expect anything else when we are talking of a concept that, although well engraved in our culture, has taken so many forms and allows for so many variable formulations. The organization of the book and the sequence of the chapters, does not imply any prior definitive formulation of the concept, neither is that our intention. We have tried to group the different chapters in accordance to their thematic unity in order to facilitate the exploration of this volume and its different chapters. The first group consists of more foundational chapters that seek to frame the concept and its underlying categories. This section is named “Foundations” and the first chapter in this section - “The Seduction of Science: How Paradigms Can Lead One Astray” - is centered on the understanding of the concept of seduction via an analogy with the function of science’s paradigms as defined in the Kuhnian conception. This is applied at three levels: the metaphysical, psychological and social, in order to support the argument that such as paradigms interpret the world for us, they also get to say what is meaningful to consider as ‘science’ or a likely candidate for explanation, evidence or theory, that might get us closer to the ‘truth’. The work of science would then be that of seduction, the need to persuade or lure that also implies a deceit. The chapter explores different dimensions of ‘Seduction’ as a metaphor, a concept that has many aspects, from the phenomenology of seduction to its literary and moral counterparts. This initial chapter sets the terrain for further discussion of this understanding of the concept of seduction has something that belongs to the realm of artifice, trickery, and deception, and that can be explored along these different dimensions in accordance to variable paths, from artistic creation, to social and communicative actions. The second chapter in this section - “Seduction 3.0: seduction, rationality and will power” - explores the relation between seduction and cognitive behavior, namely when moral problems are at stake. The chapter starts by proposing a philosophically definition of what the author call “actions of seduction”, a particular type of individual and collective actions related to some forms of manipulation. The author then proceeds by investigating whether some action of seduction may be wrong because it interferes with deliberative capacities and with conscious cognitive processing, and ends by arguing that the ethical focus should be on willpower capacities, whose depletion – even partial – would be morally problematic. The chapter then concludes by summarizing a general framework to evaluate the morality of a given action of seduction, though contributing to an original accounting of seduction in relation with moral deliberation and the relation this has with individual cognitive performance. The third and final chapter in this section – “On Seduction: a romantic conversation” seeks to explore seduction as a metaphor in popular culture and, via a set of varied examples either in the fields of cinema, photography or other artistic practices, describe what seduction is. xvii

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The second section integrates a group of reflections on the different ways seduction is depicted and imagined in popular culture. This section is entitled “Seduction imagined in popular culture” and starts with the chapter “Everybody’s got a hungry heart: Kierkegaard and Hitchcock”, a discussion on the seducer as a form of life departing from the work of Kierkegaard and the manifestation of the seducer in Hitchcock’s Vertigo. The different forms and manifestations of seduction in popular culture, in particular in the context of different art forms such as cinema or literature, is also the object of “Seduction and Mutually Assured Destruction: The Modern Femme Fatale In ‘Gone Girl’”, that discusses the figure of the femme fatale as an illustration of the use of seduction as a stylistic figure in contemporary cinema. On “Horror’s seduction through art: Death Representation”, the author reflects on the role horror has as an instrument of seduction in different artistic practices and objects, a frame for the simultaneous use of repulsion and attraction in art. A final chapter in this section – “Postmodern Cinema of Seduction: Subaltern/folk-inspired Hindi film song and dance, and the art of deferral and play” is dedicated to the cinematic manifestations of seduction, the emergence of the topic and the role it has for a very particular type of non-western cinematic production: Indian Musicals. The third and final section is entitled “Uses of seduction” concerns the practices of seduction and what they entail from a psychoanalytical, psychological and communicational point of view. The first chapter in this section – “Seduction in Works of Art” discusses the uses of seduction in works of art as embodied in a set of practices that can be better understood in the light of psychoanalytical reflection. Here, seduction is understood simultaneously as a phenomenon; a process, a strategy, and a principle, either a trait of human instinct or subjective behavior. This focus on the relation between the seducer and the seduced one, further explores seduction as a phenomenon that encompasses a subjective experiential dimension but also a social one directly related to its emergence as an event associated to specific social settings. The chapter on “Seduction and Surprise: Discovering Invisible Emotions for Commitments” also deals with the practices of seduction, but in this case by peeking on the ways surprise is integrated into practices of seduction in order to reinforce its emotional impact. The underlying suggestion of the chapter is that the connection between how seduction surprises us by unfolding different levels of emotional depth and how it enables the establishment of commitment, lies at the heart of every emotional situation, seduction though assuming itself as a core social and psychological trait of behavior. The next two chapters in this section both deal with the used of seduction in the context of media and advertising messages consumption. In “Social Psychology, the seduction of consumers” the author investigates the uses of seduction in advertising as a way to understand contemporary social traces of consumerism. The processes of persuasion, and the role the media have in society, but also advertising, as practices of seduction that reflect the ever xviii

Preface

growing dependence between processes of social cohesion and individual acts of media consumption, is also the object of “Rhetoric of seduction: From an iconocratic advertising to a tautological culture”, a discussion on the role of advertising in contemporary society and its relation to the power of the visual in our culture. One final chapter in this section – “Skepticism and Seduction” is dedicated to the uses of seduction in philosophical and political thought and in particular the uses of seduction by the skeptic. In this final chapter we once again return to the ambiguous but prolific nature of the concept and the broader theoretical exploration it allows. Altogether, the different chapters in this book contribute to a deeper understanding of the concept of seduction but, more importantly, depict the theoretical and conceptual potential the concept has in opening new avenues of reflection and discussion in many parallel areas, from philosophy to psychology, from political science to communication studies, though evidencing the relevance interdisciplinary grounded critical and scientific endeavors have nowadays. Constantino Pereira Martins Nova University of Lisbon, Portugal Manuel José Damásio Lusófona University, Portugal

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Section 1

Foundations

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Chapter 1

The Seduction of Science: How Paradigms Can Lead One Astray Ben Trubody University of Gloucestershire, UK

ABSTRACT This chapter aims to give an account of paradigmatic science as retold through Jean Baudrillard’s concept of ‘seduction’. Using concepts developed by Thomas Kuhn and Jean Baudrillard it will be argued that ‘seduction’ as understood by Baudrillard can be found at varying levels of the scientific enterprise. The two main features of Baudrillard’s seduction are ‘ambiguity and ‘reversibility’, where we cannot be sure who is seducing who (ambiguity), where each seeks to become the other (reversibility), but in doing so only highlights their differences. In terms of Kuhn’s work the more the paradigm seeks to become identical with the world, the more it begins to collapse under the weight of its own anomalies and stand out from the world. Yet when a paradigm is at its height we cannot be sure whether ‘nature’ looks the way it does because the paradigm demands it or that nature is leading science to postulate said paradigm? These themes will be examined at the metaphysical, psychological and social levels of science.

INTRODUCTION Part of the etymology of ‘seduce’ comes from the Latin seducere meaning ‘to lead one astray’ (se- ‘away, apart’ and ducere ‘to lead’) and is normally thought of in terms of enticement or persuasion, putting one in a state or position than one would DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-0525-9.ch001 Copyright ©2017, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

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otherwise be. The need to persuade or entice also implies a deceit that would not exist if something were as ‘good’ or ‘true’ as it suggested. ‘Seduction’ as a metaphor here is quite robust. It is a concept that has many aspects, from the phenomenology of seduction to its literary and moral counterparts. Grounded in Judeo-Christian literature, temptation and seduction in the West traditionally belong to a realm of artifice, trickery, and deception. Seduction like the hustler operates, explicitly or tacitly, with the consent of its subjects. We do not believe anything that we are not already prepared to entertain as true, that is the nature of the con. The reveal of the seduction is as illuminating. We do not experience it until it is over, where we either have to honestly confront ourselves and re-assess the situation or live on in denial of how easy we are to fool and in wishing we or the world were otherwise. All of these aspects of seduction have their analogue in the arena of science. Not only is the game of ‘getting fooled’ in the DNA of the scientific method, but in an age where science has become professionalised and funding crucial to research, ‘attractiveness’ and ‘desirability’ have become virtues, whether it is in the design of research bids, the content of university courses, the experiential make-up of the employee or just the acceptance of the ruse where one thing masks itself as another. Whilst things like ‘attractiveness’ and ‘desirability’ belong to the domain of ‘seduction’ they also are part of the lexicon of ‘enchantment’ so what is the difference? The Weberian thesis of ‘enchantment’ is the world pre-rationalisation and secularization (Weber, 2001). A world rendered meaningful through mysticism and iconography, but most crucially is negated through totalizing worldviews that lead to ‘disenchantment’. Davis paraphrasing Gellner says the dichotomy is simple, one is either ‘enchanted’ and ‘unenlightened’ or ‘enlightenment’ and ‘disenchanted’ (1996, pp.460-61). Even those that do attempt a modern ‘re-enchantment’ of the world do so through the Enlightenment metaphysics of ‘naturalism’ (psychoanalysis, phenomenology or Marxism). Marmol, Morell, and Chalcraft (2015) make the point for one to remain content with disenchantment, especially when one reflects on the history of science and epistemology, something like seduction has to be at play. What is meant by this is that the history of science is littered with examples of people ‘falling’ for a now defunct theories, measuring now non-existent objects, or being led up endless blind allies of enquiry. There are very good methodological reasons why so many false leads are taken, but metaphysically there are fundamental reasons why ‘science’ will never completely account for the world and hence always come up short when giving a descriptive account of it. The reason is simple and can be expressed a number of ways: 1. There can be no explicit translation of tacit knowledge; 2. There can never be an objective description of subjective meaning; 3. What we say about the world is never identical with the world itself. 2

The Seduction of Science

This last one has a distinctly neo-Kantian flavour to it but the crucial point being the ‘world itself’ is a metaphysical idea, but one that gets stronger and more ‘real’ the more encompassing the scientific paradigm. This leads on to point 2 where we can and do say things about the world of which science is very successful, but it cannot tell us what things mean or how things get their meaning, which is a sociohistorical process (tacit), something outside of language, maths and logic (explicit). It is from the meaning of things that scientific projects get chosen and why other things remain hidden – why when someone looked at fire and saw ‘phlogiston’ and not ‘oxygen’ or why empty space meant ‘aether’ and not ‘space-time matrix’. This same point is retold by Jean Baudrillard (1990; 1994) through the relations of ‘simulation’ and ‘seduction’. Within the framework of Baudrillard’s work the ideal of science is to produce a one-to-one correspondence between the model (what we say about the world) and reality (the world itself). That what we say about things is identical with the thing itself. For Baudrillard this is what ‘simulation’ and ‘simulacra’ aim at, where the model has become the ‘real’ or ‘True’. Why though we never settle or get lost in pure simulation or get absorbed by the image, why we are able to kill God as it were, is because of an inherent resistance that Baudrillard calls ‘seduction’. Butler (1999) gives an excellent account of Baudrillard’s work, which in order to follow my argument I will quote the passage in full, to which I will periodically return: Seduction is the necessity of taking the other into account when trying to produce resemblance. It is that limit we cannot go beyond in our relationship to the other (another person, the real) if we still want to maintain a connection with it. Indeed, against all interpretations of it as a form of sexual coercion, seduction is the idea that the other cannot be forced to follow, that in any such forcing there is always ambiguity, a resistance possible by the other. Seduction is the idea that we cannot have a relationship without this undecidability, without it being impossible to determine whether it is we who lead the other or the other who leads us. To this extent, we would say that seduction is opposed to simulation, for it is what means that simulation is never total, never able to account for the world, because it must always leave out difference – the seduction – that allows this. (Butler, 1999, pp.72-73)

SEDUCTION AND SCIENCE Baudrillard’s theory of seduction is a development of his general theory of signs and signifiers, where the object (sign and signifier) has come to dominate the subject (human understanding). Signs simulate the ‘real’ to the extent that we treat them as real, masking the fact that the reality it use to represent no longer exists (Baudrillard, 3

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1994). Here we must be careful not to indulge in spurious ‘postmodern’ theories of science. What Baudrillard is offering is not a theory of science or how it works, but that the metaphysics that underlie many of our assumptions about ‘realism’ in an capitalist age of digital reproduction and simulation are invalid. All that is real here is the system of relations and nothing deeper. No fundamental reality can be appealed to above the apparent and in some cases reality is cast as hyper-reality, more real than the thing it represents. The binaries that seduction was traditionally framed in come to be undermined by Baudrillard’s interpretation. Here he says that in classical psycho-analysis ‘seduction’ was a explicit manifestation of subconscious desire. An impulse bubbling up from a hidden, deeper reality. Here the true meaning of our actions can be found by analysis of this obscured realm. Baudrillard argues, however, that this is not the case, that the meaning or truth of seduction is only at the level of the explicit or manifest (Baudrillard, 1990, pp.152-3). That if there is no meaning to seduction beyond the overt play and gaming of signs, this removes the behaviour from the arena of science, of finding correspondence and patterns with a deeper underlying reality. Seduction for Baudrillard is frivolous, contingent and impish, existing only within a system of symbolic exchange, it refuses definition making it anathema to science and scientific inquiry. This is not to say that scientists do not try and operationalise it, where we might re-frame it in terms of cognitive bias, heuristics or evolutionary impulses, but the very fact that such explanations garner consent is itself part of the seduction. It is scientifically appealing or desirable to be able to explain human behaviour in terms of whatever the current paradigm for explanation is, which gives the appearance of being fundamental and final. What Baudrillard calls ‘les trompe-l’oeil’ (trick of the eye) all has to do with appearance. For truth does not exist once it is stripped of appearance, once it is removed from historical context, and appearance is the realm of play and game for Baudrillard (1990, pp.153-157). Whilst Baudrillard devised his analysis around a conception of art and aesthetics it does find parallels with the analysis the author offers. It has to be noted that ‘seduction’ is nearly always taken to be a gendered metaphor, where feminist philosophers of science (Keller, 1985; Merchant, 1983) have highlighted the roles of the ‘female’ (object) and the ‘male’ (subject) in historical conceptions of the scientific method, where violence or seduction is a power relation between the male and female. Irigaray (1985a, 1985b) points out the role of the female is pre-defined in phallocentric economies by being reduced down to the level of currency. Women either have ‘use’ or ‘exchange’ value’ to be ‘reproductive material’ (mother) or a ‘duplicating mirror’ (to reflect back the identity of the masculine). Women maybe understood as a subject as long as they take up ‘male subjectivity’ endemic to Western thought. It is this mimicry, performance or masquerade, the female being what the male wants, presents the woman as a kind of fiction, part 4

The Seduction of Science

of the symbolic and imaginary order (Riviere, 1929; Lacan 2004). The role of the paradigm in the seduction dynamic could easily be regarded as ‘female’. It has both ‘use’ and ‘exchange’ value, but as it already interprets the world a certain way making it sensible to certain questions, methods and conceptual schemas it shows or reflects these interpretations back to the enquirer. The paradigm does not mirror ‘nature’ but the interests of the dominant power structures, which historically have tended to be white, male, European. One must bear in mind, however, that seduction also means to be open to being seduced by the seduction metaphor itself. Here either ‘postmodern’ philosophers of science have over-stepped the mark in appropriating scientific discourse or scientists/ analytic philosophers have been swept away with the explanatory power of science (Sokal and Bricmont, 1998). Seduction is not just about being deceived, but to actively want on some level to be deceived, but paradoxically whether this happens or not is completely out of the person’s control as long as they allow it, that is ‘agree to play the game’. ‘Seduction’ for Baudrillard contains within it a ‘reversibility’ and ‘undecidability’ that at once does not put ‘man’ and ‘women’, for example, in opposition, but instead blurs the roles between the seducer and the seduced, who is leading who, who is allowing who to be led? This also called ‘immanent reversal’ (Kellner, 2003, p.326). Seduction then ‘represents mastery over the symbolic universe, while power represents only mastery of the real universe’ (Baudrillard, 1990, p.8). Seduction is the reversibility of power made possible by the symbolic level which doubles for simulation. The reversibility and undecidability that Baudrillard gives as the presence of seduction can also be told in terms of ‘totality’ and ‘infinity’. Power, like value he says, seeks irreversibility, to be total and absolute, whereas ‘seduction’ is reversible, ambiguous and endless (Baudrillard, 1990, p.46; pp.86-87). Science as an ideal, aims at a totality, a complete description of reality, where what we say about the world is identical with the world itself. In the form of ‘scientism’ science gives the world its meaning including what values we should have and how we should live. The gap or difference between the world and what we say about it, however never collapses, simulation never becomes the symbolic, being never becomes Being, and so as a project science is infinite. As long as science seeks totality it will come up short, yet this discrepancy will always be treated as a failure of methodology, epistemology, technology or theory and never something inherent within the metaphysics of this version of science, which ironically places it closer to a religion or what Gellner (1992) calls ‘Enlightenment fundamentalism’. This is part of the seduction, the continual reinterpretation of something that is infinite as something total, yet as it never stays a totality there is an undecidability at play, always the chance that science has to deal with the infinite. This is disagreeable at number of levels, be it an infinite varieties of science (the ‘Postmodern’ condi-

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tion), infinite variations of ‘truth’ (threat of relativism), infinite depth to knowledge (epistemic intractability), or the unworkable infinities that mathematicians and theoreticians try to avoid. Paul Feyerabend (2010) in his famous critique of the ideal of science argued that it has no singular, universal method or approach. Science is simply what scientists do, it is a practice that is historical and so changes. What it meant to be doing science in the 17th Century is not what it means to be doing science today, yet this conclusion appears to challenge underlying metaphysical notions about the unity (totality) and continuity (infinity) of science. Science itself resists scientific analysis, hence why things like the problem of demarcation are intractable to analytical philosophy, where it resists being defined. Science once removed from historical context no longer exists in any meaningful sense. Here we can generate pseudo-problems about the veracity of Aristotle’s worldview over Newton’s, which then become packaged as epistemological problems about incommensurability. For some there is a truth to this matter, that Einstein is more correct than Newton and Newton is more correct then Aristotle, and for some scientists/ philosophers their job is uncovering this deeper reality, that transcendentally tracks truth, ahistorically and universally (Weinberg, 2001). This science tells us how reality really is and not to be fooled by appearances. This version of science is one of ‘progress’ and ‘reason’ converging over time towards ‘absolute truth’ or an ‘ultimate reality’. This Kantian distinction between the world as it appears and as it really is, whilst not essential for science, does manifest itself as possibly one of the greatest seductions for the scientist and non-scientist alike as the search for ‘Truth’. This way of thinking about science gives way to ‘scientism’, a fundamentalist understanding of the role and abilities of the scientific world-view, for Lawrence Krauss (2012) science can tell us why something rather than nothing; for Sam Harris (2010) science can even tell us what values we should have. Part of seduction is seeing one thing as something else, how that happens is also part of seduction’s ambiguity and reversibility, according to Baudrillard. Likewise, scientists do not just see reality, but they see something as something, if it is noticed at all. Astronomers see the Sun as a star, chemists see water as H2O, biologists see humans as primates and so on. Thomas Kuhn (1996) offered the idea that the ‘as’ is historical. Kuhn along with Feyerabend tried to raise the profile of history in the story of science as a means of critiquing the methodological abstractions that purported to say how science really worked. For Kuhn the history of science was organized around paradigms of research, weaved together by normal science that sporadically shifted by way of revolutions. The paradigm proffers an interpretation of reality that is so coherent and intelligible that it can be mistaken for the world itself. This mistake also occurs in readings of Kuhn and Feyerabend discussed as the ‘problem of incommensurability’. Whilst the mixture of Kuhn and Baudrillard, 6

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on first appearances, make strange bedfellows and both have been read as radical relativists (Norris, 1991), Kuhn’s historical account of scientific change where paradigm and world aim at identity, but within each paradigm is sown the seeds for its own reform or impossibility if the two become too close, this shares many similarities to Baudrillard’s analysis of culture and history in terms of seduction and simulation doubling each other. Seduction being the idea that a system only arises on the basis of its relationship with the other but: The system pushed too far in its resemblance to this other begins to produce the opposite effects from those intended, begins to resemble the other less and less. (Butler, 1999, p.97) Whilst Kuhn draws parallels with gestalt psychology and political coercion as a means to explaining paradigmatic force, the author offers up ‘seduction’ as an alternative guiding metaphor.

PARADIGMATIC SEDUCTION Science has a history of backing the wrong theory and even overlooking equally plausible theories, given the evidence, when available (Stanford, 2006). The pursuing and resolution of ‘false’ theories along with the neglect of equally likely theories share the motif of mistaken identity found in literature. Here the conflict is between appearance (who one is taken to be and how things should be) and reality (who one really is and how things are), which drives the plot along. Whilst the two may only share linguistic similarities the dichotomy between ‘appearance’ and ‘reality’ is one that runs throughout history of philosophy and science, which we shall return. Another literary convention in philosophy and science is to portray ‘nature’ as female. Whilst there are multiple theories as to the origins of this convention most likely it is a combination of nature’s representation as goddess in antiquity, the gendered structure of the Anglo-Saxon languages, and the reproduction of social relations as patriarchy. The sorts of expressions and sentiments reflective of gender role assignment was common amongst the natural philosophers of Enlightenment Europe such as Bacon, Descartes and Newton. In 1753, for example, Diderot wrote: Nature is like a woman who enjoys disguising herself, and whose different disguises, revealing now one part of her and now another, permit those who study her and assiduously to hope that one day they may know the whole of her person. (Hadot, 2006, p.196)

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This gender assignment of nature is not confined to the 18th Century, but Easlea (1986) points out its 20th Century contemporaries from Albert Einstein to Frank Close. Harding (1986; 1991) also speaks of the male scientist typically being involved in a ‘dance’, ‘marriage’, ‘assault’ or ‘seduction’ of nature. Here ‘dance’, ‘marriage’ and ‘assault’ can all come under the heading of ‘seduction’ as meant by Baudrillard, where a system only arises on the basis of its relationship with the other but the impossibility of it ever becoming the other due to a reversibility, where the harder it strives to bridge the distance the further away it becomes (possibly its opposite). Whilst this might sound very abstract, the ‘ambiguity’ or ‘undecidability’ and ‘reversibility’ of Baudrillard’s ‘seduction’, where the ‘real’ and the ‘other’ attempt to double/ mirror/ identify with one another can be elicited through examples. The first way we might demonstrated this is through the Kuhnian idea of paradigms and how paradigms gain consent. A common conceit of seduction is that we overlook undesirable aspects and traits of a person’s character, including our own. Here we are complicit in constructing an image that allows us to be rational in accepting what we see, hear, believe and do. In science as in lay-seduction shifts in observation and theory or perspective and judgement can always be explained ‘after the fact’ maintaining the rationality of decisions made and why error was not obvious from the beginning. The physicist Richard Feynman (2001a, 2001b) was another who appreciated the fallibility of experts and the need to stand guard against being fooled and fooling ourselves. Much to the chagrin of the received view of science, Feynman acknowledges that scientists have and do manipulate their results and conclusions in accordance with previous experience. He points out that ‘when someone says science teaches such and such, he is using the word incorrectly. Science doesn’t teach it; experience teaches it’ (Feynman, 2001a, p.187). As such one never experiences ‘science’ but only the experience of others in the form of knowledge handed-down, yet most people conflate this with science, which is really the possibility for overriding the experiences of others. Feynman points to the Millikan ‘oil drop experiments’ and the changing value of the charge of the electron over time. His question is why did the value of the electron increase incrementally over time to somewhere near its actual value today, given that the required technology was available? ‘[W]hy didn’t they discover the new number was higher right away?’ (Feynman, 2001b, p.211). Feynman offers the explanation that every scientific observation requires a judgement about what is and is not relevant. This judgement is not just an application of the scientific method, but is acted upon by social, political and philosophical concerns. This judgement is an exercise of tacit knowledge, something that is all at once inside and outside the domain of science. It is of ‘science’ for this judgement could lead to a radical new insight or just build upon previous experience. It is also outside of science for radical change is external, something not already contained 8

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within the received experience of observation, equation or theory itself, this is why they do not occur very often. It is more akin to an intuition that goes beyond the empirical content or model, to a new arrangement of phenomena or new meaning to stale observations. Exactly how these shifts in experience or judgement occur is what has been at stake in the interpretations offered by historical and analytical philosophy of science. Feyerabend (2010), like Kuhn, appealed to non-empirical aspects to account for scientific change: Once it has been realized that a close empirical fit is no virtue and that it must be relaxed in times of change, then style, elegance of expression, simplicity of presentation, tension of plot and narrative, and seductiveness of content become important features of our knowledge. (Feyerabend, 2010, p.118) For Kuhn (1996) the role of the paradigm was, among other things, to offer up a dominant interpretation of the world, that sets the research agenda and limits what is considered meaningful be it a question, an answer or way of acting. When paradigms are at the height of their powers they are undetectable, almost identical with the world and all incongruity is passed over as anomalies or as ‘yet to be explained’. The paradigm is successful if it prevents scientists from asking fundamental questions and instead occupies them with ‘puzzle-solving’. The paradigm gives the impression of being involved in a one-to-one correspondence with nature, which then spurs on further research, which eventually due to heightened levels of scrutiny the paradigm permits brings about its own downfall. In seeking to become identical with the world, the paradigm becomes less like it, eventually descending into crisis. Today what we call obsolete theories were all held for a time and with good reason. The fact that obsolete theories could be entertained as being true or contenders for truth is a reflection of how meaningful they were. So what exactly is a paradigm? Paradigms are a notoriously problematic concept to define. Kuhn’s (1993) shift from paradigm to incommensurability as the central idea of Structure accompanies a shift from an historical to linguistics/psychological account of scientific change in the philosophy of science (Gattei, 2008). This also had the effect of framing ‘paradigms’ as a linguistic or psychological phenomena from which many problems have arisen. This led to the well-trodden territory of relativism, object meaning variance and the general elusiveness of what a paradigm is (Shapere 1964, 2001; Masterman 1970). The sort of formalism and logocentricism that historically developed in parallel between the sciences and philosophy in the West were well under study before Kuhn (Duhem, 1908; Husserl, 1913; Bachelard, 1934; Heidegger; 1927). Arguably it was Kuhn’s lack of training as a philosopher that saw him channel a decidedly ‘European neo-Kantian’ interpretation of science, but without the conceptual apparatus to clearly express it Kuhn appears vague, opaque and confused at times. One of the conceptual 9

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problems with ‘paradigms’, the author argues, is that it is routinely thought about as a ‘thing’, and in one sense it is. It acts as ‘concrete puzzle-solutions’ which then ‘can replace explicit rules as a basis for the solution of the remaining puzzles of normal science’ (Kuhn, 1996, p.175). It is also ‘the entire constellation of beliefs, values, techniques, and so on shared by the members of a given community’ (Kuhn, 1996, p.175) which cannot be reduced to a ‘thing’. A paradigm in this respect is a historical-social process that continues against a background of tacit understanding. For we inhabit the world outside of a paradigm’s interpretative power, because if we did not science could not change. It is the role of the paradigm and normal-science to hide the tacit aspect of doing science, where scientists can commit to the paradigm to develop knowledge to esoteric levels. It is the role of the paradigm to present itself as if it were the world, unified, continuous, with hidden depth, facilitating the metaphysical commitments that normal-science requires. A ‘paradigm’ then in the broader sense is a ‘non-thing’, a type of historical way-of-being (practice). One could not point at a paradigm any more than one could point to the Victorian era – we could point to signifiers, but that only works if being ‘Victorian’ is already meaningful to us in system of references. What we a trying to refer to is a combination of historical discourses and ways-of-being that make up being Victorian. Rouse (2002) offers an interpretation close to this where we routinely refer to a ‘work-world’ or the ‘world of finance’ (Rouse, 2002, p.113). This is the ‘world’ of a practice, a space and rationale for how people conduct themselves, which would be meaningless or unintelligible given a different context, but not incomprehensible. This is the threat of radical incommensurability (ultra relativism), where scientists occupying different paradigms could literally not understand each other due to the paradigm dictating how reality, language and mind all meet up. As paradigms are not the world, this never happens, but it is a political and ideological threat that it might, where ‘creationists’ want the controversy taught who may literally be unintelligible to evolutionary biologists. Rather, the problems generated by radical incommensurability and ultra relativism are the consequences of a metaphysical interpretation of science being challenged. In the face of such challenges the ‘world’ as an external, objective, mind-independent reality, which sits at the base of the empirical-realist approach, is not necessarily something that has to be believed in order for science to occur (Hoyningen-Huene, 1993).

METAPHYSICAL SEDUCTION The aims of scientists are not necessarily the aim of science. Whilst we talk about science as if it were intentional it is a synecdoche, where individuals, research teams and the overall direction of science are all implied. Science is also polysemous, it 10

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can mean a special method for finding things out, a body of knowledge arising from the things found out, or the new things you can do from things found (Feynman, 2007, p.5). Whilst at the global level we may want to say the aim of science is to understand how the world actually works or to have a true description of reality, at the local level it is of people in research teams trying to solve smaller particular problems via a multitude of methods. It is the totality of these outcomes that we typically call ‘scientific knowledge’, but how this comes about can be completely divorced from the ‘aims of science’ which is an abstract account limited by historical perspective. This interpretation of scientific enquiry lends itself to an evolutionary model, where individuals have aims, goals and reasons, but spread over a population these count for very little. Just as ‘evolution’ happens, it does not aim at anything, it has no desires or goals. It is just what happens to be given certain conditions and possibilities. A possible objection to the evolutionary model is that evolution has no endpoint and is contingent – it is not evolving towards anything, subject to random events. Do we feel comfortable saying science has no endpoint or that the body of knowledge science produces is not an inevitable outcome of the scientific method enquiring into the objective structure of reality? The weaker commitment is to say that knowledge neither increases nor decrease as the more we know the less certain we are about being right, this would be the reversibility of knowledge or the distance between certainty and doubt that seduction has us play. The stronger commitment is that not only are we gaining more and more knowledge, but that we are progressing towards a truer description of reality (Weinberg, 2001). That given enough time and the right tools the knowledge science produces is inevitable because that is the way the world really is. This idea of not only describing the world as it is, but also providing a philosophical basis for that knowledge is, for some, the Holy Grail of science (Barrow, 2007). This position not only has the reversibility between doubt and certainty, but also science and religion, it is a theological view of science, which is possibly the stronger seduction. Both of these views are, however, philosophical positions that inform how one interprets the aims, purposes and possible limits of science. Feynman was highly critical of philosophers and scientists who spoke with certainty about how science ought to be. This type of scepticism or ‘philosophy of ignorance’ is a constant mistrust of the situation, but none-the-less a willingness to go along with the ruse as long as one is a conspirator and not a victim (Feynman, 2007, p.28). This accepts the idea that science may be an infinite process of inquiry as our best experts are frequently wrong. The stronger position laid out above we may call ‘absolutism’ – that scientific knowledge has a permanence, that there are ‘eternal’ and ‘universal’ truths out there waiting to be discovered. That the nature of these truths will be ‘law-like’, where nature is uniform and regular and that the increase in predictive power of modern 11

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science implies a gradual march towards greater truth (Giere, 2006, p.4). This is science as a totality, eventually describing and explaining everything in the universe because it is identical with it (Theory of Everything). Kuhn’s work along with other historical and sociological analysis of science show that such a position is implausible if not impossible – indeed this view can become pathological to the point of being either irrational or unscientific, yet it has an appeal. Arguably, why this metaphysically stronger view of science has such appeal is that not only is it philosophically and historically naïve, but at its core it is religious. In keeping with the metaphysics of contemporary epistemology, modern theories of knowledge tend to be developed outside of their theological origins. From this a tradition has emerged where we think of beliefs as being compelled by evidence rather than made by decision (Fuller, 2003). The problem of knowledge for the philosopher then is that we need to find some method or criterion for evaluating the evidential quality of our beliefs. Epistemologists still cite Saint Augustine, who refuted the Greek sceptics by claiming that some beliefs are self-evidently true because one would not have such beliefs unless said objects had not caused them, or as Saint Aquinas said, ‘there is nothing in the intellect that was not before in the senses’ (Popper, 1963, p.556). A problem here is that we want to say that notable interpreters of the world such as Aristotle and Einstein both ‘sensed’ or experienced the same world, but only interpreted it differently. The stronger claim is that their interpretations differ in truth-value because Einstein had the advantage of 2,500 years of trial and error and Aristotle did not, and given the same methods and knowledge both would come to the same conclusions. This is where we can raise the historical critique of Kuhn’s paradigms. Firstly, it is not obvious that anyone beside Einstein could have made the conceptual leap that he did. Secondly, if by ‘experienced the same world’ we mean the ‘planet earth’ then this is trivially true, but if we mean the world as viewed/ interpreted through their ‘lived-worlds’, then they did not. To think that Aristotle and Einstein are in the world in the same way is historically and philosophically naïve (Vrahimis, 2013). To think of the ‘world’ as a spatial location being continuous over time is an abstraction. If by ‘world’ we mean ‘planet earth’, then yes both Neanderthal and Hollywood actors have lived there. ‘Planet earth’, however, is distinct from the ‘lived-world’ we ordinarily inhabit. The richer, more human sense of ‘world’ is a system of signs, relations and meanings that we use and negotiate with everyday. This world is not found in a spatial location. It is not found anywhere as it is not a ‘thing’. This is why for Wittgenstein, ‘the world of the happy man is a different one from that of the unhappy man’ (Wittgenstein, 2001, p.87). Whilst again in the naïve sense this sounds trivially true, like the ‘world’ of the pro-gun lobbyist is different to ‘world’ of the anti-gun lobbyist, you could present the same evidence and information to both parties and both could justify their position. The ‘evidence’ for both has a reversibility, statistics on gun related deaths 12

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is evidence for both more and less gun control. Equally, one could say the world of the ‘steady-state’ physicists is different to that of the ‘inflationary’ physicist, where Hoyle and Ryle saw the same information but it meant completely different things to them. The role of epistemology is to get at the ‘truth’ of the matter in the objective sense that we talk about the ‘planet earth’ and this is what science does very well. Where science becomes inappropriate is in trying to give a scientific interpretation or explanation of the ‘world’ in the second richer, more human sense. We could state the distinction again as one of probabilities (scientific) versus possibilities (hermeneutic). Scientific explanation and knowledge deals in degrees of certainty, all things being equal. A philosophical approach deals with the limits of our possibilities, our historical ways-of-being. So whether Aristotle saw falling objects not as a result of natural dispositions, but as mechanical forces operating across the aether is not one of probability (even though it could be described that way), but one of possibility. The historical possibility of Aristotle viewing the world that way was not open to him or anyone else. The signs, signifiers and relations that were historically present did not allow for those possibilities. This does not mean Aristotle was less ‘rational’ only that he had no reason to consider certain alternatives. This lacking of possibilities raises an interesting question about ‘impossibility’ and how that may be epistemically and historically structured. Once a paradigm comes to interpret phenomena for us it is virtually impossible to return to its alternatives in any meaningful sense. It is hard to see fire in any other way than that of combustion. We could ask the question, what is the probability that the fields of quantum mechanics and relativity will become unified in the next 20 years? The honest answer is no one knows as the historical possibilities that allow us to interpret the world in such a way that phenomena are not overdetermined by our current best theories do not yet exist. This advance or shift may come from a field that is presently considered ‘unscientific’ or does not even exist yet. What we have today represented in modern theories of knowledge and the messier scientific method has it roots in Cartesian formulation. The problem of knowledge as the ability to tell whether God or a demon has shaped the world so as to compel our beliefs about it. This is an old literary trope of a malevolent spirit leading us into temptation, offering us a Faustian pact. The role of faith here is to override our senses and reason, to believe in something that cannot be corrupted by reason or evidence. It was under this interpretation that Feyerabend (2010) made his notorious critique of a scientific method that aims at rationalism. It could be argued that what scientists are engage in today is a secularised version of the ‘demon – God dilemma’, testing for sources of error in belief formation, until only one suitable candidate for explanation is left. Still there remains the problem that this very method maybe a product of the demon, how would we know? Here philosophers have taken 13

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up the challenge as a ‘logic of discovery’ to which a significant contribution has been made by scientist-theologians keen on demonstrating that the orderliness and explicability of nature requires a creator God. People such as William Whewell, Thomas Bayes, Christian Wolff and William Paley – all acting at the peak of the Europe Enlightenment. Since then this tradition has been further secularised (its theological nature masked further) by ‘transcendental justification’ and ‘inference to the best explanation’. Here we are coerced into believing x on the face of the ‘evidence’, which may also incorporate metaphysical notions about what it is to explain something. Whatever does present itself as ‘evidence’ can only be done so because it is already meaningful (its possibility exists). How many scientists had heard static hiss on the radio but did not regard it as evidence for cosmic background radiation? (Gribbin, 1978). For Kuhn ‘normal science’ is a kind of priming, making scientists susceptible to forming certain beliefs that will contribute to a clearer grasp of the vision of reality suggested by their paradigm. Without the epistemic guarantees of a paradigm it becomes difficult to motivate ‘normal science’. Nobody would reasonably undertake such a discipline unless they thought it would lead to ‘knowledge’ or ‘truth’. Another way of stating the metaphysical aims of science is what Thomas Nagel (1986) called the ‘view from nowhere’. A type of foundationalism visible in the formalism, logicism and rationalist projects ending the 19th and beginning the 20th Centuries. The spatial adverb ‘nowhere’ is particularly apt here, not only because is it a closed compound of ‘no’ - ‘where’ (indefinite location) but also ‘now’ - ‘here’ (definite location). One is of the objective ideal, to be free of place and time, to be transcendental and the other immanent confined to the moment. It is this type of Derridean différance or Baudrillardian reversibility that seduction plays within paradigmatic science.

PSYCHOLOGICAL SEDUCTION Intellectual seduction can quite easily be translated into cognitive and epistemic terms, where we can ask questions whether given p belief q is justified or not. Here ‘seduction’ is just a prosaic synonym for being mistaken. A tension between the psychology of lay-seduction and scientific error is that in romantic seduction there is a kind of beguiling or enchantment of the senses, where we temporarily and possibly voluntarily suspend our critical faculties. Whereas in science we like to think that the passions, wishful-thinking and the affects of personal psychology are mitigated by the scientific method. As the scientific method is not a singular universal thing and humans are fallible it is very hard to know when one is being compelled by the evidence to the best explanation or an explanation is compelling 14

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one to see something as evidence for it? This leads to the blurring of the traditional distinctions of context of discovery and justification in the philosophy of science. Kuhn famously made use of ‘Gestalt switches’ for explaining changes in scientific perspective (Kuhn, 1996, p.85). Some have taken this to be analogous, whilst others quite literally (Bird, 2012). Whilst arguments can be made for the link between the evolutionary advantages of pattern recognition and the success of the scientific method, this the author argues, is inappropriate. For the current paradigm within biology is ‘evolution’ and hence frames all existing phenomenon within those terms, reducing complex social constructs, such as, ‘sexuality’ to more simple evolutionary forces. This then elides the much more complex issues of gender and bio-politics inherent within ‘evolutionary’ explanations of human practices (Haraway, 1989). Pattern recognition is something that does happen in science, but the sorts of ‘patterns’ modern science invokes are completely removed from the level of reality that the human brain evolved in. This is arguably one of the reasons there are so many conceptual problems in understanding quantum or mathematical processes. More to the point is that ‘patterns’ presuppose orderliness and the idea that nature should be orderly, which whilst maybe a useful metaphysical notion, is not an observable empirical one. Again, do the experiments and observations drive the metaphysical commitments or vice-versa? Who is leading who? Whether or not patterns result from an orderly or chaotic world is besides the point, for to ‘recognize’ any pattern is to the exclusion of other possible patterns. It is here that the paradigm suggests what should be looked for, which then limits what can be considered as possible suspects in explanation. The stronger argument is that whilst the paradigm metaphysically aims to objectively reflect nature, at the level of practice it reflects the dominant power-structures of society, which is part of the seduction, it reflects our own values, ideals and beliefs back to us, making the Protagorean phrase ‘man is the measure of all things’ particularly suitable. Seduction is relational, between ourselves and the ‘other’. It is also ambiguous in that the ‘other’ can always resist, there is no necessity to being seduced, no one is compelled to act or follow. Yet in the dance of seduction there is an inherent ambiguity as to who is leading the dance, where in order to have a relationship this undecidability must be present, where it is ‘impossible to determine whether it is we who lead the other or the other who leads us’ (Butler, 1999, p.73). Here then it becomes difficult, if not meaningless to separate the act of seduction from those things we are seduced by. If one is a process and the other an accomplishment, we only ever have half the story. Is it ‘nature’ who is leading our theories and guiding our judgements, where the outcome is a faithful observation, or are our theories about nature leading us to posit things that are not really there? Sometimes we are lucky enough to find out, sometime we do not and it is this ambiguity that ‘seduction’ holds. This then problematizes the distinction in the philosophy of science between the context of discovery and justification, 15

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between the conceiving and the testing of a theory. Feyerabend states that the two are not distinct, but happen together, that they are a mixture, where to be able to entertain a theory is to create the possibility for its justification (Feyerabend, 2010, p.149). For Galileo the possibility that the Earth orbited the Sun was to, rightly or wrongly, know how that could be so in the first place. It is both cause and effect. Every now and then science uses placeholders for phenomena that it has no direct evidence for or cannot wholly explain but whose inferred existence can be justified or at least entertained. The maths predicting the ‘neutrino’ made its name a placeholder for years, today the terms ‘gene’ and ‘dark energy’ are all inferred to exist but what exactly they are remains unknown. The point of the ‘placeholder’ is so one can create hypotheses against which tests can be made and depending on the outcome refine our experiments or the domain of the placeholder. This however is to miss the bigger point that very well established phenomena, both explained and justified have been over-turned in favour of other theories. This situation, as Popper (1963) would have it, makes all scientific terms ‘placeholders’ or ‘provisionally true’ as they have to include the possibility of being wrong/ falsified. Whilst we use the term ‘fact’ as a shorthand for ‘what there is’ we are actually committing to a metaphysical idea of ‘what there is’. Tallis (2008) says a fact is ‘not something like an object that is simply ‘there’’ (2008, p. 263). A ‘fact’ is dependent on how we notice the world and how we choose to divide it up. The room that I am in has the possibility for any number of facts, but that possibility is constrained by the ‘world’ I occupy, or what I am allowed to acknowledge as being meaningfully ‘there’. What this means is that ‘facts’, the methods we use, the ideas we utilise, both ‘discovery’ and ‘justification’, and even ourselves are all historically constrained, which includes the modes of thinking we use in order to situate terms such as transcendental, immanent, contingent or ontological in various philosophies. This maybe marks a divide between the various schools of process philosophy when discussing science. On the one hand is the ‘American’ pre-pragmatist process thought (Peirce, James, Dewey, Whitehead, Mead) where the model/ metaphor of Darwinian evolution was a suitable vehicle for describing how novelty and change occur. In contrast to this is the ‘European’ continental process philosophy of those like Heidegger, Deleuze and Badiou who focus on the historical, pre-theoretical or pre-epistemological conditions for being or knowledge. Today this divide has arguably been exaggerated by the professionalization of science and philosophy, where we have philosophers who think they are doing science and scientists who are really doing philosophy all summed up rather neatly in the perennial ‘science vs. region’ debate (Harris, 2010; Krauss, 2012). This, however, may also be part of the seductive pull that ‘scientific thinking’ has, that philosophy should have the same explanatory power as science and that science should have the same investigative

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scope as philosophy. As Seibt (2013) says ‘the particular adventure of any process philosophy is to develop the intuition of something’s being dynamically the same into full-blown theoretical explanations’. Phenomenologically we could say that ‘discovery’ is to find one’s self attracted to something real or imagined (a theory, an idea, an explanation), but our attraction does not occur separately to our justifying the attraction. They are part of the same act. To be drawn to something is to already know why you are drawn to it – it already appeals to something. Possibly the trick of seduction in the context of philosophy of science is to rationalise the split between ‘discovery’ and ‘justification’, that the two are conceptually and temporally distinct. That first we have the claim, the discovery, followed by the ways we test for the veracity of the claim. Rather, ‘discovery’ in science does not happen at an instance, but maybe diffused over decades or even centuries, spread over national boundaries, which in turn carry their own possibilities for justification. Kuhn draws this point out over the ‘discovery’ and ‘justification’ of oxygen between Priestley and Lavoisier. Whilst there maybe debate about which of these two made oxygen ontologically distinct, the scientific community still overlooked theories developed in the 17th Century by Rey, Hooke and Mayow, which could have equally laid claim. The role of the paradigm is to present relevant puzzles that galvanize the practice of normal science, which is what enable theories that may share justification to be overlooked. There is a kind of collective seduction or what Lakatos called ‘mob psychology’ that permits this assent (Lakatos, 1970, p.178). One potential way of identify ‘psychological seduction’ is in seeing how scientists got things wrong. Borrowing from feminist theory the idea is that the paradigm reflects the investigator’s desires back at them – re-enforcing their identity in some way, be it vindicating their conception of science or validating their world-view. The most prevalent examples of this kind can be found in theories of race and intelligence as well as human origins. For example, the resilience of the ‘Piltdown Man’ hoax (1908 – 1953) was in part due to the fraudulent fossil playing to certain nationalistic, gender and racial biases at the time. The remains were identified as ‘human’, discussed almost exclusively as ‘he’ in the popular press and became an appropriated symbol for the divide between the civilized, white, European male human and the savage, non-white, African animal (Goulden, 2007). It made sense that the cradle of civilization should be Enlightened Europe and not the African savannah, which would also lend credence to the ‘superiority’ of the white European. Going back further, stories of human origins that present an alternative to Biblical accounts also presented a hurdle to interpretation. The 17th century naturalist and Professor of Chemistry Robert Plot felt it made more sense to interpret a large femur bone as that of belonging to a population of giant humans, as mentioned in the Bible, than consider the possibility that it belonged to previously unknown mas17

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sive animal (Plot 1677, pp. 136-139). It was not that it was incomprehensible, the words made sense back then like they do now, but the possibility for that to even be considered as an alternative reality was unintelligible. Plot even considered the idea that it maybe from a war-elephant left behind from the Roman conquest of Great Britain, but ruled it out as implausible. The religious discourse that saturated the naturalistic paradigm, which to a large extent is still part of the metaphysics of science, allowed Plot to make sense of a ‘reality’ where giant humans existed and that all fossils were the result of a vital earth energy mimicking zoological forms by influencing mineral salt crystallization. Further on there was Lord Kelvin’s (circa. 1897) estimations on the cosmological age of the Sun and Earth, which was informed by a theological view of the universe. The claims were reasonable given the estimates by sedimentary geology, which required an energy source that predated the Sun (Stacy, 2000). Moving into present times, the astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle resisted the ‘Big Bang’ theory of the universe, as the idea of the universe having a beginning was philosophically displeasing to him. This, he argued, was a religious sentiment and not scientific to propose the universe had a genesis. Instead Hoyle, along with Bondi and Gold developed an alternative model that could explain (at the time) all the empirical observations and predictions that the inflationary model did (Gregory, 2005, pp.70-71). With the mounting evidence Bondi and Gold eventually dropped their model, but Hoyle never did. Currently the scientific community is divided over a number of topics such as whether we are in the only viable universe or whether we are part of a wider, potentially infinite/ eternal multi-universe, which the value of the Higg’s Boson may give us a clue, but again science is torn between the ambiguity of a totality (a single knowable universe) and an infinity (an endless array of universes) and what that means for modern science. For example, whether the subject matter and questions generated are themselves even scientific? Going beyond this there are even more dramatic examples where scientists have not just interpreted data incorrectly, but ‘witnessed’ fictional events. In 1903 René Blondlot claimed to have discovered a new type of radiation called ‘N-rays’. What made the discovery all the more plausible was that X-rays had only just been discovered 8 years earlier along with alpha, beta and gamma rays. It was a fertile time for discovery in radiation and whilst N-rays appeared to exhibit some strange properties there was no general theory governing what should and should not be the case. The conviction that N-rays were real was only strengthen by multiple independent replication of Blondlot’s findings. Augustin Charpentier not only isolated N-rays but suggested that they might have medicinal qualities in human body imaging. Between 1903-1906, 120 trained scientists published almost 300 articles on the existence and characteristics of ‘N-rays’ (Lagemann, 1977, p.281). Needless to say not every scientist could replicate Blondlot’s findings and with good reason as they do not exist (as far as we know). Why so many scientists ‘saw’ what Blondlot reportedly 18

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saw is still a mystery, possibly a combination of suggestion, taking second-hand testimony at face-value and lack of rigour seems likely. But why see it in the first place and be convinced of it? Part of paradigmatic seduction at the psychological level is that the discovery of different types of radiation was situated as meaningful, it was a possibility that could be looked for and investigated. The psychology of an individual or collective are, however, socially embedded. This makes it hard to determine whether 120 scientists really did ‘see’ N-rays or that there were socially motivated to not resist such ideas. Prior to Blondlot’s investigations into ‘N-rays’ he had won prize money for a different discovery, which he had shared with his co-researchers. In anticipation of discovering something new that would merit financial reward Lagemann (1977) suggests that his team and others working in this relatively new field were incentivised to discover something. An episode of this type which involves a phantom event, independent confirmation, plus potentially huge financial rewards has been ongoing since the 1980’s with ‘cold fusion’ and the search for cheap, clean, renewable energy. The latest incarnation is from Andrea Rossi and his ‘E-Cat’ generator (Fletcher, 2011, pp.37-38). Here it might not be that the paradigm per-se dictates what is ‘seen’, but the structuring of science and its institutions around paradigmatic fields of research, how those fields get funded and the potential for financial rewarded based on a consumer-business model can evoke the seduction metaphor.

SOCIAL SEDUCTION The most common exposure a child will have to ‘science’ will be an image or pastiche presented at school, in textbooks, television programmes or film. Some may be drawn to the quasi-theological search for truth, others to the archetype of intellectual hero or genius, some may equate science with progress and others may just like solving puzzles. As science is a human activity it has a history and it is how this history gets carved up, abridged or redacted then comes to emphasize or diminish certain aspects of ‘science’ that are either understood as crucial or trivial to the practice. Philosophers of science have thought they could purify this history from which a methodology could be modelled and universalized. Indeed this is how science is taught from the condensed set of ahistorical puzzle-solutions presented in textbooks to the inductive ‘fraud’ of research papers, a re-telling of how experiments are done and conclusions are arrived at (Medawar, 1963). This may be necessary to teach 400 years of scientific development, but it also presents a chimerical image of how science is done. Teaching 18th Century optics or mechanics in their 21st Century formulation, where the solutions are established to a degree that make the very world we occupy possible, is not how those problems were first encountered. We 19

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could easily call this anachronistic (an idea out of historical context), but pastiche is equally applicable (the celebratory mimicking of style). We want the glory of human ingenuity and perseverance over nature with none of the social or historical context it took to achieve it. How well would a college class on Newtonian physics go if members had to commit to a creator God, a belief in alchemy, corpuscularism, action-at-a-distance and sacred geometry? Feynman (1990) draws attention to this where trainee scientists are presented with their own history of ideas divorced from how those ideas actually came about. What I have just outlined is what I call a “physicist’s history of physics,” which is never correct. What I am telling you is a sort of conventionalized myth-story that the physicist tell to their students, and those students tell to their students, and it is not necessarily related to actual historical development, which I do not really know! (Feynman, 1990, p.6). Education at all levels in the West is linked to future prosperity and progress. Exactly whose prosperity and progress is a matter of debate. Science tells us how certain ends can be achieved, but it does not tells whether they ought to be (Russell, 1950, pp.396-97). Beyond the legally required ethical code of conduct for research most science courses limit if not eliminate all non-scientific content. A physics course can teach relativity without ever touching the philosophy of Hume, Kant, and Mach that Einstein had to immerse himself in in-order to make such a conceptual leap (Norton, 2009). As Orgeta Y Gasset argued (1930) the ‘specialization’ of science means the narrowing down of interests to a very small, specific area of enquiry, but because the ‘scientist’ is heralded as the apex of civilized man, the embodiment of reason, this highly specialised way of viewing a small area of life is then applied on mass to all domains. This, Orgeta Y Gasset argued, not only makes for uncreative scientists, but mediocre people in general. This general attitude of science being the arbiter of what is meaningful to talk about is part of what is today called ‘scientism’. Whilst in its most overt forms ‘scientism’ is easily identifiable, but with the ‘specialization’ and ‘professionalization’ of science and the Higher-Education (HE) system means it has taken on a more diffuse nature. Here seduction is not just a pull towards replicating the domains of science in inappropriate areas, but the industry of ‘academia’ itself feeds-back on what we regard as worthwhile things to study. The allure of academia is that it is a meritocracy, promoting intellectual integrity and academic freedom, whilst offering a route to financial solvency. Yet, Universities becoming ‘for-profit’ organisations focusing on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and promoting ‘employability’, each of these has become its opposite. Whilst the author will be focusing mainly on the British HE system the ambiguity and reversibility of educational ideals will be addressed. 20

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EMPLOYABILITY AND THE CAPITALIST ETHOS HE and education in general is gradually being structured around a businessmanagerial model, that is a move away from a free-market economy to one of a knowledge-economy (Olssen & Peters, 2005). This is an explicit attempt to align ‘knowledge’, ‘learning’ or ‘education’ with ‘capital’. Where the whole point of an education is ‘productivity’, that the only things worth knowing are translatable into capital, which is achieved by investing in ones self as the site of capital. Here there is a simple supply and demand relationship. Not only what is offered in HE and capitalism in general is a gateway to a better life, but with the ‘knowledge economy’ has come new ways of finding investment. Here we have things like the creation of the ‘student experience’, student ‘employability’ and ‘satisfaction’. The gradual withdrawal of Government funding for HE has meant many universities now act as stand-alone businesses/ charities and like all businesses they require customers. The first example of reversibility and ambiguity is the ‘student as customer’ dynamic. The individual is both student and customer. The student as customer relation simultaneously places the individual inside and outside of the educational process. They are there to ‘learn’ in that they want the ‘student experience’ and a qualification/ job at the end of it, but neither ‘satisfaction’ nor ‘employability’ necessitate learning or understanding in the pedagogical sense. Universities are now ranked not just on the quality of research output or the calibre of academics, but also on the experiences of the graduate. Both what count as ‘satisfaction’ and ‘experience’ for those coming through HE today are already primed by what ‘education’ and ‘learning’ was experienced to be at primary and secondary school levels. If education is understood as functional then it becomes a means-ends relationship. What do I need to know? How do I get the qualification? This is supported by what Churchwell (2008) calls ‘affirmative teaching’ where students are coached on how to pass exams, strategies of memorization and revision. If HE does not conform to past experiences of learning, with large reading schedules and minimal tutor contact then students can object to not being taught at all. This does not bode well for post-graduation surveys that then influence where universities rank. Institutional organization around ‘capital’ and a ‘knowledge economy’ means modules and courses can be constructed to reflect current political trends and drives, which in turn creates a deficit for departments that no longer fit those narratives. Not only will STEM subjects be looked upon more favourably than arts and humanities courses, who face greater risk of funding cuts and departmental closures, but course admissions will also wax and wane with popular culture, the ‘CSI effect’ being recent example (Weaver et al, 2012). A double-standard, however, is that ‘STEM’ subject competences amongst politicians and the educational heads who push this agenda are as lacking, if not more so, than in the general labour pool. According 21

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to Hall (2010) only 10% of UK Government MPs have a HE background or affiliation with science, engineering or maths, and according to a report by the ‘New Engineering Foundation’ (NEF), only 5% of college principles (NEF, 2008, p.10). If though your subject falls outside of the STEM remit, then a knowledge economy demands that academic viability, regardless of subject, be measurable. A way of telling good from bad research, significant from insignificant. This is done by way of the Research Excellence Framework (REF). Should though all contributions be able to fit into a single framework? This impulse is reminiscent of the metaphysics of scientism, that there be a criterion by which all knowledge and research are assessable (totality). ‘Excellence’ here is a very narrow, short-term conception of what it means to excel. Getting things published, having a high citation impact, attracting funding means you are good at doing those things and not necessarily doing good or significant work. One of the off-shoots of this approach is that academics are much less likely to engage in high-risk, long-term projects for fear of not producing anything substantial. Couple this fear with the need to have an impact outside of academy, where research should be translatable to financial or public concerns, then this begins to stymie academic freedom. The whole idea of ranking research quality, if looked at from a historical perspective seems absurd, where useless acts of theory have gone on to be foundational for landscape changing technology not even dreamt of at the time (infinity). Yet from a business point-of-view it makes complete sense that students and awarding bodies can discern who is ‘objectively’ better. Part of the totalizing conception of science/ education is to be able to discern at a glance good from bad, clever from stupid, valuable from worthless, which is what quantifying research aims at. Arguably, getting high-end journal and book publications, as well as writing successful research proposals means you are good at applying the conventions of your field in a language that administrators and editors like. This is one of the reasons the hoax paper exists is to every now and then disrupt the status-quo, to point out that just because conventions have been applied does not necessitate original or even meaningful work. The hoax and fraudulent paper highlight the ambiguity and reversibility of ‘research’ where just because the appropriate language is used, all the right references made and the conclusions seem in-keeping with the conventions of the field does not make it genuine research or indeed its publication could be a satirical comment upon the status of the field (Sokal Affair). Top journals have published nonsense papers and where the merit of some is still debated (Bogdanov affair). The REF though is a realisation of the ‘knowledge-economy’. The coupling of professionalism, education and science has created an environment where job security is linked to ‘output’ and ‘student satisfaction’. This has had a number of consequences, not just for science, but HE in general, where the seduction metaphor is applicable. 22

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Firstly, key to landing funding is to make a research proposal appear as ‘attractive’ as possible. This means a kind of seduction by mirroring the expectations, ideals and language, of those who set the standard, back to them. The current preoccupation with all things ‘evolutionary’ or ‘neurological’ means tenuous qualitative research is funded due, in part, to reflecting current attitudes regarding the expanse of those paradigms. Why invest in creating new art when we can find the neurological or evolutionary origins of all art? Besides the point of whether it generates publications or public interest, one has to ask is it a topic for scientific enquiry? This is one of the expressions of ‘scientism’ that an inappropriate methodology or question is shoe-horned into the domain of science because for some reason it can illicit a better more meaningful response than other approaches. It can tease out and illicit a better response than other modes of inquiry. A study that looks at the social causes of violence or crime just does not seem as alluring as the neurological or genetic origins of them. The irony being that the current trend for neurological or evolutionary explanations of human practices are not only conceptually and philosophically underdeveloped due to a lack of investment in the arts/ humanities, but as they are they also offer very little insight (Tallis, 2012). Here we have scientists acting like philosophers and philosophers acting like scientists, they have become ambiguous and reversible in their work domains. Secondly, those who are not good at writing attractive research bids have an even greater incentive to have their work published, to appear productive. These pressures have led to an environment of ‘publish or perish’. This is a way for academics to have their work evaluated and further their careers. This need, however, has been met with sharp rise in bogus journals, predatory publishers, fake peer-review rings, publication bias, research fraud and general malpractice (Steen, 2011; Ferguson, Marc & Oransky, 2014). In parallel with academia a ‘shadow academia’ has arisen, an inversion of academic values, a black-market economy of pay-to-publish journals, publishing houses, ghost writers, peer-review rings all standing-in for the ‘real’ thing. Bohannon (2013), for example, had from 304 submissions to fee-charging journals (some belonging to Elsevier, Sage, Wolters-Kluwer) 255 successful acceptances for a bogus scientific paper. Even when the journals are genuine positive results are 3 times more likely to be published than negative ones or the null hypothesis (Dickersin et al, 1987). Merton (1957, pp.295-301) argued that the rise of fraud and misconduct in science was connected to a ‘reward system’ that prioritized originality and novelty above modesty, but more fitting today is that as funding, and by extension job security, gravitates towards science the imperative to make ones’ research appear more ‘science-like’ is increasing. This has led to a glut of sub-standard statistical analysis and all-round shoddy methodology, leading to ambiguity over the lines between practice and malpractice (Wicherts & Bakker, 2013). Diederik Staple being a stand out example of someone who was good at applying the conventions 23

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of his field to mask the reality of ‘junk science’ (Levelt Report, 2012). The fact that disingenuous claims were indistinguishable from genuine ones, claims were sustained for so long (setting up a research department) and were even awarded funding before it was questioned can be seen as long as the aims of science, capital and the university are consoled does it even matter if the ‘research’ is real or not? Thirdly, does the REF along with financial incentives promote ‘excellence’ or does it just drive an industry of either short-term, achievable mediocrity/ shadow academia of deviancy? Do great people necessarily have to be productive in the REF sense? Do they have to be great communicators of their subject enhancing the ‘student experience’? Ludwig Wittgenstein and Alan Turing, both recognised as geniuses of the 20th Century, arguably would struggle to get a job today with their research output and teaching styles today (Monk, 1991). Peter Higgs has commented on how unlikely his theory would have been produced if today’s levels of professionalism had applied 50 years ago (Aitkenhead, 2013). The ‘Higgs Boson’ being posited in 1964 and not tested until 2013, with fewer than 10 papers published in the interim. Then again take Einstein’s academic performance prior to 1905. A failed entrant to the Swiss Federal Polytechnic in Zurich, average grades in the Swiss Matura, rejected permanent teaching post, employed outside of academia working for the Federal Office for Intellectual Property (missing promotion), and only published one paper in a high-end journal with minimal impact on the science community (Einstein, 1987, pp.7-13; Fölsing, 1997, pp.36-37; Bodanis, 2005). Fourthly, the movement of the university away from centres of learning to business means that ‘education’ has now become a commodity that can be bought and managed rather than a process that an individual engages with. The ‘student experience’ is not just a way of measuring university performance, but is a way of selling university appeal. The ‘student experience’ no longer requires one to be a student of anything. It does not require studying to achieve it, yet people are preparing to pay the highest fees that have ever been in HE. So how does one make the ‘student experience’ seductive, to fill open days and fill classes? Firstly, as already mentioned it has to resemble what the individual already knows as ‘learning’ or ‘teaching’, where more interactive, multi-media, spoon-fed, aims orientated the better. Secondly, like any seduction it has to promise something it cannot deliver. What is promised is an education, which through the filter of capitalism, implies a better way of life, improved future earnings and a way to avoid the cycle of debt that plagues may ‘under-educated’ people (Hayward, Jenkins & Molesworth, 2011). Education and HE also sells itself as a meritocracy where hard work, academic integrity and scholarship are rewarded. True education, the process of self-change, means one has to be prepared to be challenged. How then are these negated from happening? Access to HE in the UK and US is the most expensive it has ever been. The Anglo-speaking ‘West’ has a particular pull, for it is not only a signifier of intellectual 24

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acumen, but of wealth, an image a lot of universities are happy to endorse. Of the top 10 universities for billionaire alumni 9 are found inside the UK or US. Non-EU students can now pay in excess of £30,000 a term for attending a UK university, but with the pull of foreign money has come some obvious hurdles to ‘education’. Dubious standards of literacy is not just a problem for non-English speaking students, but also native speakers as well. With the pervasiveness of ‘affirmative teaching’ there is less a focus on independent thought and argument development and more about reproducing information. This coupled with easy access to the internet has brought about high-levels of plagiarism, which many institutions turn a blind-eye to as cultural affectation (Sutherland-Smith, 2008; Patron, 2014). As this is the underbelly of academia it is not widely reported, so it is reduced to anecdote, but stories of lecturers altering coursework and correcting poor English are not uncommon (Churchwell, 2008). The main incentive being that if students do not pass they will go to universities where they will. Practices such as grade inflation, overly lenient interpretations of plagiarism and minimal reading schedules go hand-in-hand with upward trends in student satisfaction. This is why ‘education’ cannot thrive here as it does not permit failure, success is managed whilst being passed of as an achievement. With performance and success so staged managed is the university really a meritocracy? Is it structured and run by its most competent members, professors and academics literally being experts in their fields. The immanent reversibility of universities advertising business management and financial accountancy courses, run by ‘experts’, that then face bankruptcy or financial issues is avoidable. Another aspect of the social seduction of education, that the author will only briefly allude to, is the ‘spectacle of knowledge’. The 3-4 years of exposure the average student will get at graduate level is one of forced perspective. Not only will the ethnicity, gender and age of the lecturer tend to reflect the dominant social power structures, but the sensory aspect of seeing and hearing a person in a position of authority appear omniscient in their knowing, is highly seductive. What is presented as ‘radical’, ‘challenging’ or’ novel’ to the young mind is little more than the mainstream of that field. This ‘spectacle of knowledge’ being the product of a carefully constructed course, years of repetition and the acquiring of cultural capital that signify ‘knowing’ or ‘expertise’ (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1990). What else makes HE seductive is that it is a driver for social justice, diversity and equality. This coming from a system that is predominately white, male and middle-class. Just 0.4% of UK university professors are black and 7.7% are from a ethically mixed background (UCU, 2013). Just as in society the relations of capital are reproduced in a top-down hierarchy. Wage increases amongst the top-managers of universities between 1998-2009 was four times that of academic staff, where the average wage of a vice-chancellor is £260,000 (Warner, 2015). Female and black professors earn on average 6.3% and 9.4% respectively, less than their white, male counterparts 25

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(UCU, 2013, p.1). This continues down to the free labour provided by early career academics peer-reviewing, publishing, editing, maintaining web presence, conference organizing and so on. As Barassi (2012) wrote that such academics are not only willing to offer their unpaid labour to the apparatus of academia but are ‘hoping and praying to get exploited’ by it. If working in academia comes at a cost then studying even more so. HE promotes itself as the solution to poverty and debt, but the reality of it is that most will not get a better paid job and will just incur more debt. According to 2014 UK statistics 73% of students will be unable to repay their loans (Thompson, 2014), only to then be contacted by their university using their status as a registered charity to ask for donations and contributions as part of the ‘alumni experience’. Student debt stands at £54.3 billion (growing by £5 billion a year) and yet HE is the route to financial solvency (Warner, 2015). There is almost a slave-master logic at work here where the problem’s cause and solution are the same thing. Hopefully the ‘ambiguity’ and ‘reversibility’ of seduction, where all things turn into their opposite, has been made apparent where non-science seeks to be science, where ‘excellence’ has become ‘mediocrity’ or ‘conventionalism’ and where academic integrity has a shadow academia of deviancy, and malpractice.

CONCLUSION What has been offered is a re-telling of the Kuhnian paradigmatic commitments scientists and the institutions of science have as one of ‘seduction’. This was applied at three levels: the metaphysical, psychological and social. As paradigms interpret the world for us they also get to say what is meaningful to consider as ‘science’ or a likely candidate for explanation, evidence or theory, that might get us closer to the ‘truth’. The history of science, however, is one of error and it maybe through the metaphor of seduction that we get to see why such errors persist, or even why scientists are prepared to break with methodological norms and override what the ‘evidence’ indicates. The epistemological battle with ‘seduction’ in assessing the evidential quality of our claims and beliefs is however, strangely at odds with a HE system that incentivises particular modes of enquiry over others. The movement of the HE system, within which science is situated, from a centre of learning to one of business, or a free-market economy of ideas to one of a knowledge-economy, has also had a detrimental effect on science, as well as academia in general. The aligning of knowledge and education with capital has created a pathological system that makes HE the cause and solution to many of the problems it looks to combat. Borrowing from Baudrillard, we see a type of ‘immanent reversal’ at play, where all things become their opposite. The student is now a customer with all of the 26

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rights and none of the responsibilities of learning, where the subject has become objectified, academic freedom is now whatever fits the REF, where fictional research has just as much merit and appeal as ‘real’ research, and ultimately science and non-science blur in the race to secure funding by appearing ‘attractive’. Whilst the metaphor of seduction is a robust one the author argues that at its core it is a gendered one. Where such phenomena are typically analysed in the philosophy of science as ‘bias’, ‘epistemic warrant’ or ‘inference to the best explanation’, whereas feminist epistemologies are much more open to the role of gender-politics in how such traditional epistemologies are maintained. ‘Seduction’ as a way into historical and methodological aspects of scientific change could be useful addition in this ongoing debate.

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Thompson, R. (2014). Too Good To Fail - The Financial Sustainability of Higher Education in England. The Higher Education Commission. Retrieved on June 4, 2015, from http://www.policyconnect.org.uk/hec/research/report-too-good-failfinancial-sustainability-higher-education-england UCU. (2013). The Position Of Women And BME Staff in Professorial Roles in UK HEI. London: UCU. Warner, M. (2015). Learning My Lesson. London Review of Books, 37(6), 8-14. Retrieved on May 13, 2015, from http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n06/marina-warner/ learning-my-lesson Weaver, R., Salamonsona, Y., Kochab, J., & Porter, G. (2012). The CSI Effect At University: Forensic Science Students’ Television Viewing and Perceptions of Ethical Issues. The Australian Journal of Forensic Sciences, 44(4), 381–391. doi:10.1 080/00450618.2012.691547 Weber, M. (2001). The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. London: Routledge. Wicherts, J., & Bakker, M. (2013). Broken Windows, Mediocre Methods, and Substandard Statistics. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 17(3), 388–403. doi:10.1177/1368430213502557 Wittgenstein, L. (2001). Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (D. F. Pears & B. F. McGuinness, Trans.). London: Routledge Classics.

KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Ambiguity: The quality of being open to more than one interpretation leading to uncertainty. Infinity: The quality of having no limit or end. Paradigm: A worldview underlying and giving explicit meaning to the theories and methodology of a scientific subject. Reversibility: The quality of being able to move between two oppositional or contradictory states. Scientism: The belief that the scientific method is only way to attain true knowledge making the empirical sciences the most authoritative worldview or the most valuable part of human learning - to the exclusion of all other viewpoints.

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Seduction: The relationship between people when one seeks to influence another, but in doing so it becomes unclear who is influencing who. It also the inherent difference between ‘us’ and the ‘other’, which becomes more apparent the harder we try to seduce. Totality: The quality of being complete, unified and absolute. World: A historical system of relations that contextualises people’s experiences and provides tacit meaning for everyday encounters.

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Chapter 2

Seduction, Rationality, and Willpower Adrien Barton Osaka University, Japan

ABSTRACT This chapter starts by providing a definition and a basic taxonomy of actions of seduction, and clarifies some links between seduction and manipulation. It then considers Eric Cave’s (2009, 2014) thesis that actions of seduction are problematic if they alter motives by hampering rational capacities, in particular when they lack transparency. The chapter challenges this view by arguing that there are no intrinsically rational cognitive capacities, and that the non-transparency of some triggers of attraction may actually be valuable. Therefore, the ethical focus should not be on supposedly rational capacities, but rather on willpower capacities: a seduction process that would deplete such capacities would be seriously problematic. Such a depletion should however be distinguished from other seduction strategies that aim at increasing or decreasing various desires without impairing willpower capacities. The chapter concludes by proposing a general framework for evaluating the morality of an action of seduction.

INTRODUCTION A classical moral worry about seduction endeavors is that they sometimes seem to be manipulative. For example, if Pat is attracted by Sam and wants to seduce him, she might act nicer than she usually does, use perfume and body language to atDOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-0525-9.ch002 Copyright ©2017, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

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tract him subconsciously, put on a red dress to look more attractive (Elliot & Nesta, 2008), etc. Are such actions morally problematic – maybe because they address a nonrational part of the human mind, or because they influence in a non-transparent fashion? More generally, does seduction sometimes interfere with important cognitive capacities in a morally problematic manner? This chapter aims at answering those questions through successive steps. It starts by proposing a philosophically sound definition of actions of seduction, and argues that some actions of seduction are indeed related to some forms of manipulation. To examine whether they are morally wrong, this chapter investigates with which morally relevant cognitive processes such seductive influences may interfere. The thesis of this chapter will be that actions of seduction that interfere with deliberative (and supposedly rational) capacities, or with cognitive processings, are not necessarily morally problematic; instead, the ethical focus should be put on willpower capacities, whose depletion during a seduction process – even partial – would be morally condemnable (or at the very least morally problematic). The chapter then concludes by summarizing a general framework to evaluate the morality of a given action of seduction, and comparing its strengths to an alternative account proposed by Cave (2009, 2014).

BACKGROUND: GENERAL DEFINITIONAL AND ETHICAL ISSUES This section will define actions of seduction, dissociate two subclasses of them, and show the strength of this definition. It will then examine how the literature in philosophy of manipulation and seduction can help to spell out the moral problem of interference with cognitive capacities, which will be investigated in the remainder of the chapter.

Definition and Taxonomy of Actions of Seduction Imagine that Sam wants to seduce Pat1. For this, he will perform various actions that will be called “actions of seduction”, which are part of a “seduction process”. Obviously, each party in a seduction process can be the initiator of various actions of seduction; but in the following, when a specific action of seduction will be considered, the agent will be referred to as the “seducer”, and the other party as the “seducee”. Inspired by Conly (2004, pp. 111-112), actions of seduction will be separated in two classes: “positive” and “negative” actions.

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A “positive” action of seduction will be defined here as an action that aims to give birth to or increase a romantic and/or sexual desire towards the agent (which will be called a “positive” desire). Positive actions of seduction may include e.g. grooming or dressing attractively, displaying attractive qualities (humor, intelligence, physical appearance, body-language…), giving attention, flirting, expressing one’s interest or feelings, telling about each other, building an emotional connection, creating a pleasant atmosphere, initiating and increasing the level of body contact (including kissing and having sex), making plans together (short-term or long-term), sharing activities, giving presents, making pleasant surprises, moving in together, etc. As stated in the definition, an action of seduction can aim at increasing a purely romantic desire, and does not need to include a sexual component; for example, one may want to seduce romantically an asexual person. But because many seduction processes involve a sexual component, this chapter will concentrate on sexual seduction – that is, seduction aiming at increasing a sexual desire (as well as, possibly, a romantic desire). Humans may hold various and conflicting desires at the same time. Pat may be sexually attracted to Sam, and thus have a positive desire to have sex with him2, but at the same time have another desire not to have sex with him – this will be called here a “negative” desire. For example, she may have endorsed a rule not to have sex before marriage; or she may undergo some social pressure pushing her to refuse to be sexually involved with Sam; or she may be in a committed relationship with someone else; or she may be more attracted to another person and willing to be in a monogamous relationship; etc. In order to seduce Pat, Sam might try to reduce such a negative desire (or prevent its apparition) through what will be called a “negative” action of seduction: he may try to convince her that her “no sex before marriage” rule is not sound; or argue that she should not care about social pressure; or attempt to reduce her attraction to a third party; etc. There is a large body of psychological and philosophical literature on the nature of desire, but this chapter will remain largely independent of it3. One relevant question, though, will be whether some desires have a higher ethical importance than others. For example, Frankfurt (1971) has dissociated a person’s first-order desires from his second-order desires, which are desires about her own first-order desires: Pat may desire Sam, but at the same time have a (second-order) desire not to have this (first-order) desire, for example in case Sam is an abusive boyfriend she is in love with. Other philosophers have dissociated mere desires from intentions, which are more deeply settled (Spellecy, 2003): Pat may have a fleeting desire to have sex with Sam, but at the same time have a firm intention not to have sex before marriage. Such distinctions will be quickly considered in the section “The moral value of willpower” below, but in most of the chapter, all desires will be considered as having the same nature, although they may of course differ in intensity. 36

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Strength of the Definition The definition of actions of seduction that has been given above is purely descriptive and normatively neutral – it does not suppose that seduction is wrong (or right) as a matter of principle: normative considerations should arguably be investigated once non-normative definitions of the key concepts have been provided. According to the definition, actions of seduction can happen at various occasions during a relationship. This is in line with the idea that seduction is a continuous and never-ending process in a relationship, which can reactivate the desire and feelings that would otherwise naturally decrease between partners. As a famous quote attributed to Anaïs Nin states: “Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don’t know how to replenish its source.” This subsection will now argue that the definition provided above is more solid than other definitions proposed in the literature by Cave (2009) and Conly (2004). Cave (2009) has defined sexual seduction as one person’s purposeful attempt to get another, initially unwilling, to engage in sex, by converting her initial unwillingness to willingness to have sex based on sexual desire. However, the conversion of the unwillingness to have sex into willingness cannot constitute the core of sexual seduction, for three reasons. First, one can seduce another person with the aim of increasing his sexual desire, but without the intention to have sex with him – such as seducing someone for entertainment only, or as a way to boost one’s self-esteem, or to attain other goals (for example, flirting with a salesperson in order to get a discount at a shop). Second, one can seduce someone partially, by increasing her desire to a level that is not strong enough to make her willing to have sex; arguably, this should still count as seduction. Third, a person might already be willing to have sex with the agent from the start (if, for example, she finds the agent very attractive); still, her desire can be increased further by being seduced – and in such a case, there is no conversion from unwillingness to willingness, but only an increase in her degree of willingness. The definition of positive actions of seduction presented above is in agreement with those three considerations. Some other definitions of seduction may appear too restrictive. For example, according to Conly (2004, p. 112): “Weakness induced by another is what we’ve come to know as seduction.” However, this does not concern all seduction processes, and a positive action of seduction does not need to “increase a desire that one is trying to fight” (Conly, 2004, p. 116). Imagine for example that Sam has triggered Pat’s sexual interest, but not to the point where she would already be willing to have sex with him; she may well give a chance to this positive desire to blossom, and have no intention to fight this growing desire – that is, she may want to be seduced by Sam, or at least be open to the idea of being seduced by Sam. Also, not all negative actions of seduction do “diminish or outweigh a conflicting desire which is really 37

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in accord with their overall motivational structure” (Conly, 2004, p. 116). Imagine for example that Pat just met Sam and feels quickly very attracted to him. Suppose also that, because of social pressure, she is afraid to appear too promiscuous if she would have sex with him soon; but she does not recognize herself in this negative desire, and considers it as alien to her true self. If Sam would convince her that she should not care about other people’s opinions or social norms, this might enable Pat to express better her overall motivational structure – although this would not be the case if Sam recognizes herself in her negative desire, and consider it as part of her true self.

Seduction and Manipulation Those definitional considerations should be completed with an account of manipulation. Manipulation is notoriously difficult to define, but Gorin (2014) has provided a convincing account, according to which manipulation is a form of influence that fails to track reasons. This means that a manipulator may try to influence without giving apparent reason – but instead, for example, by triggering some emotions. But it also means that the manipulator may provide reasons he actually does not care about: he is only interested in the causal effect of those reasons on the manipulee’s behavior, decisions and desires, without any concern for the intrinsic justificatory value of those reasons. According to this account, some actions of seductions would indeed be instances of manipulation if they do not provide apparent “reasons to feel, want or do a certain thing” (Cave, 2014) – as when Pat subtly uses perfume to attract Sam unconsciously4. The term “manipulation” is problematic because it is normatively charged (Coons & Weber, 2014; Grill, 2013): according to the most common understanding of the word, the simple fact of being manipulative makes an influence morally problematic5. Since we do not want to prejudge which of the so-called “manipulative” actions are morally problematic, we may prefer, as suggested by Blumenthal-Barby (2014), a purely descriptive label without normative undertones: therefore, the term “nonreason-tracking influence”6 (abbreviated as “NRT influence”) will be used here instead of “manipulation”. As explained by Blumenthal-Barby, the morality of a given NRT influence may depend on the specificities of the relationship between the influencer and the influenced. This also seems to apply to seduction scenarios. For example, one might have more duties and responsibilities when seducing a friend than when seducing someone previously unknown. Once the relationship between the influencer and the influenced person is known, a NRT influence can then be morally evaluated along several criteria, as suggested by Blumenthal-Barby (2014). A first criterion is whether it has good aims and consequences: influencing someone for his own 38

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good may alleviate many problems traditionally associated with manipulation. A second one is whether it involves some virtues or vices (virtues can include e.g. generosity, honesty, justice, charity, courage, integrity, compassion, etc. 7). Finally, a last criterion is how it threatens or promotes personal autonomy: several definitions have been proposed of the latter notion, but it can loosely be defined as the capacity of an individual to determine and pursue her own conception of the good according to her own will (Mills, 2015). Again, those criteria seem to be relevant to evaluate seductive influences. For example, actions of seduction may be wrong if they are likely to lead to negative consequences (such as emotional pain, unhappiness, low well-being, sexual dissatisfaction, self-depreciation, psychological instability, or dissatisfaction with the relationship) that outweigh the positive consequences (such as emotional fulfillment, happiness, high well-being, sexual satisfaction, self-esteem, personal growth, or satisfaction with the relationship). Or they may have a higher ethical valence if they involve virtues such as honesty, generosity and respect rather than deception, egoism and contempt (for example, misogyny). Finally, autonomy concerns are relevant to ethical considerations of seductive NRT influences: do some actions of seduction make it more difficult for the seducee to follow her own will? In order to answer this question, the next subpart will present one of the most detailed accounts of the ethics of seduction that has been given in contemporary analytic philosophy, proposed by Eric Cave.

Cave’s Account Cave (2009, 2014) calls “unsavory seduction” a large range of seduction practices that he considers as morally problematic, and whose common feature is that they alter motives (such as desires or drives) by circumventing rational capacities: by doing so, they violate what he calls “modest motive autonomy”. In his 2009 account, he also emphasizes conscious processing as a precondition of rationality: he considers that an action that would stoke “a latent and unconscious sexual desire”, or “engage unconscious or unvalued non-sexual motives so as to generate, amplify or unblock conscious or unconscious sexual desire”, would infringe on the rationality of the seducee, and thus be morally problematic. This is a quite broad criterion, and Cave (2009, p. 143) indeed considers unsavory seduction as a “relatively common phenomenon”. In particular, his criterion would imply that some common seductive practices are morally problematic, such as using perfume, or deploying one’s charm or magnetism in order to generate desire, when such practices do not provide (real or apparent) conscious reasons to the seducee for desiring the seducer (Cave, 2014, p. 184). So by Cave’s standards, if Pat would

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use perfume to attract Sam unconsciously, this would be morally problematic; as would be Sam’s deployment of his magnetism in order to attract Pat, in case she cannot explain herself why she finds him charming.

Organization of This Chapter This chapter will examine the validity of this general condemnation. Autonomy concerns are relevant for such a question. However, autonomy is a complex notion whose definition and moral value is debated8. This chapter will therefore not aim at giving an account of this notion, but rather at investigating the effect of actions of seduction on specific cognitive capacities or processes that are relevant to autonomy. This will require to consider thought experiments in which Sam seduces Pat (or vice versa) through actions of seduction that circumvent some of Pat’s cognitive processes, without involving bad consequences for Pat; one can then investigate whether Sam’s actions were morally wrong nonetheless because they have circumvented some of Pat’s morally relevant cognitive processes. More specifically, this chapter will investigate three kind of cognitive capacities or processing modes. First, it will investigate whether the notion of “rational capacities” (as mentioned by Cave, 2014) makes sense, and conclude that the exercise of both deliberative and heuristical capacities of decision-making can be rational – and thus, that there are no inherently rational decision-making capacities. It will then argue that the unconscious effect of some positive actions of seduction is not necessarily morally problematic. Therefore, it will contend that the moral value should not be put on rational capacities or conscious processing, but rather on willpower capacities, whose depletion would be morally wrong. The differences between this account and Cave’s will then be discussed.

RATIONALITY AND TRANSPARENCY Deliberation and Rationality Do some actions of seduction infringe on the rational capacities of the seducee? This is the thesis held by Cave (2014), who holds that some actions of seduction are problematic because they alter motives by bypassing rational capacities. This raises, however, the question of explaining what are rational capacities. In the psychology of judgment and decision-making, dual-systems models (Stanovich & West, 2000; Kahneman, 2011) dissociate two systems called “system 1” and “system 2”, which are sometimes called “intuitive” and “deliberative”: as summarized by Kruglanski & Gigerenzer (2011) – who object to such models – 40

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“intuitive judgments [are] associative, quick, unconscious, effortless, heuristic, and error-prone; and deliberative judgments [are] rule based, slow, conscious, effortful, analytic, and rational”9. If such an account would be sound, then any influence that triggers intuitive decisions – as some positive actions of seduction may do – would bypass rational capacities of the agent, and thus be morally problematic. Other approaches in the psychology of judgment and decision-making have however criticized this strict dichotomy (Kruglanski & Gigerenzer, 2011). Heuristical strategies of decision-making can be defined as fast and frugal: they operate quickly, and they use only a small part of the available information, whereas deliberative faculties are slow and use a large part of the available information. On this alternative view, heuristical processes can follow rules, be applied consciously, and – most importantly – be rational10. This can be illustrated by an example provided by Gigerenzer (2015) about financial investment (see also Gigerenzer & Todd, 1999 for many other examples of heuristics). The economist Harry Markowitz won the Nobel Prize for his studies of mean-variance portfolio, which relies on a highly sophisticated, deliberative investment strategy. When investing his own money, however, Markowitz used the “1/N” heuristics, which consists in allocating equally his money across all N funds under consideration. The 1/N strategy is applied consciously and is rule-based; moreover, it may seem indeed rational to use the 1/N rule in real-world situations of time pressure and limitation of computational power, as long as it leads to a performance that is satisfying enough. To vindicate this claim of rationality, one should define what is a rational decision. Samuels, Stich, & Bishop (2002) have contrasted several views on rationality. According to the “standard view”, to be rational is to reason according to some classical normative theories such as logic, probability theory, decision theory and so forth. But according to an alternative view, a decision process is rational if it is optimal given relevant constraints such as time pressure, complexity of the environment, deliberative costs, etc. Here, “optimality” can be defined as fitting some criterion, such as the satisfaction of the preferences of the agent. Thus, according to this view, a decisional process can be rational in a given environment, independently of its nature (heuristical or deliberative), as long as it is likely to satisfy the preferences of the agent in this environment. Note that in this view of rationality, a decisional strategy cannot be said to be rational or irrational per se, but should instead be characterized as rational or irrational in a given environment; Gigerenzer and Todd (1999) have therefore suggested the term of “ecological rationality”. Those considerations are especially relevant in seduction and relationships matters. Imagine that Sam falls under Pat’s spell, and they are now having a date at a cafe. As they are talking, however, Sam insists on exercising his deliberative faculties in order to double-check the quality of his intuitions. Thus, he keeps analyzing whether he is 41

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really attracted to her, and why. But progressively, this constant questioning makes him distance himself from his emotions, and breaks the charm of the situation. He also wants to analyze the full space of his dating options: when thinking about it, isn’t he less attracted by Pat than by his long-time crush Vic, with whom he never managed to get a date? He is suddenly thinking that maybe he should try asking Vic out one more time, before considering anything with Pat… He also strives to investigate fully the consequences of his actions: what if he ends up in a long-term relationship with Pat, marry her, but is not attracted to her anymore in seven years from now? Chances are, though, that when Sam is over with his inner questioning, he will realize that Pat has left the cafe for long, although she may have been a good match for him. To summarize, by insisting on using his deliberative faculties, and running across various possible alternatives and consequences, Sam may end up less satisfied. Thus, in such a situation, it could be ecologically rational not to use deliberation, and instead follow his intuitions and emotions on the moment – or more generally, his heuristical decision processes. Imagine another situation (inspired by Gigerenzer & Todd, 1999): Sam and Pat eventually end up in a relationship, and some time down the road, Sam proposes her to marry him. Pat is strongly in love with Sam, and she could decide to accept Sam’s proposal on the basis of this single, overwhelming, emotional reason: this is the heuristical, non-deliberative way of taking the decision. But let’s imagine that Pat insists on using her deliberative faculties, weighing all pros and cons of getting married, and taking a decision on this basis. Maybe, in doing so, she will be scared or overwhelmed by the prospect of all the possible consequences of such a decision, and she will refuse, although she may have had a happy life if she married Sam. But let’s suppose that this does not happen. Still, to make an ideally informed decision, she would probably need more information about how her relationship with Sam could evolve in various circumstances, so she asks Sam to leave her some time to decide. This may damage their relationship though: Sam may resent Pat’s hesitations, and come to doubt her feelings towards him; if he is so sure about his own decision to marry her, why cannot Pat feel the same way? Of course, choosing heuristically may not be the best decision strategy in such a case. Maybe Sam is a patient and understanding person, who can understand that Pat needs to take time in order to deliberate about such an important decision. Or maybe Pat would make a big mistake by accepting (or refusing) Sam’s proposal right away on the basis of her emotions only. The conclusion here is simply that contrarily to what is supposed in Cave’s account, there is no such thing as a rational capacity – only the rational exercise of a given decisional capacity: depending on the details of the situation at hand, both heuristical and deliberative strategies may be rational or irrational.

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Thus, if deliberative faculties are not necessarily rational, triggering someone’s heuristical faculties in order to seduce her does not necessarily lead him to make irrational decisions – and conversely, pushing someone to deliberate does not necessarily lead her to make rational decisions. So one cannot claim that actions of seduction that stimulate heuristical processing always compromise the rationality of the seducee11. If this view of the nature of decisional processes and rationality is sound, and neither deliberation nor heuristical processes are intrinsically rational or irrational, then concerns about actions of seduction infringing with rational capacities – such as Cave’s – have to be revised. There are two ways to do so, which do not exclude each other. A first strategy would be to consider that actions of seduction raise concerns when they trigger someone’s decisional capacities in a predictibly non-rational way – rather than when they trigger intrinsically non-rational capacities, or circumvent intrinsically rational capacities. According to the view of rationality presented above, concerns about rationality in seduction contexts would boil down to the following criterion: it is morally problematic to seduce someone by pushing her to make decisions through cognitive processes that will probably lead to a situation that does not satisfy her preferences. So if Sam has good reasons to think that Pat would end up unsatisfied in case he would manage to seduce her – because, for example, her intuitive and impulsive decisions would probably lead her to end up severely emotionally hurt – then this is an ethical reason that counts against seducing her. We are here left with a consequentialist criterion that does not assign any ethical value to some specific cognitive faculties (such as deliberative faculties) over others (such as heuristical faculties). A second strategy would be to say that actions of seduction raise concerns because they infringe on some intrinsically valuable (but not intrinsically rational) cognitive capacities or processes. Thus, the next subsection will examine whether such a special value should be assigned to conscious cognitive processes; and the section after will contend that it should rather be assigned to willpower capacities.

Transparency and the Value of Mystery Maybe the problem of some action of seductions lies in their lack of transparency, which makes impossible their conscious processing. As it happens, contemporary psychology has revealed a number of actions of seduction that may operate in a non-transparent way. Imagine that Sam and Pat have planned to go on a date together, and they both want to seduce each other. Sam may have heard of the famous Capilano bridge experiment (Dutton & Aron, 1974; Meston & Frohlich, 2003) which shows that people may misattribute the arousal due to the fear they experience when crossing a suspension bridge, heightening their feeling of attraction to 43

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a nearby person; and accordingly, he may suggest to Pat to meet at an amusement park, hoping for a manifestation of this effect. As for Pat, following the results of Elliot & Nesta (2008), she may put on a red dress to unsuspectingly look more attractive; or inspired by Guégen (2007), she may lightly touch Sam’s arm during the date, with the hope of increasing his attraction towards her. All such actions intend to increase the other party’s desire, but may operate in a covert way: for example, men often do not realize that they are more attracted by the color red, and people generally do not consciously realize that they may misattribute fear’s arousal to attraction. Does the non-transparency of some positive actions of seduction make them morally problematic? Note first that it would not be sound to impose a general moral requirement of transparency in all kinds of personal interactions. As a matter of fact, there are at least some domains in which transparency is not a credible requirement; for example, one could not reasonably require an opponent in a chess game to make transparent the reasons why he makes such or such move – this would defeat the point of the game. This subsection will show that a requirement or transparency would also have little credibility in a seduction context. To state this point, a distinction will be introduced between two aspects of any action of seduction that may be made transparent. First, the intention of the agent to seduce the other party may be made clear – this will be called “intention-transparency”. More specifically: when Sam interacts with Pat in order to seduce her, this seduction process is intention-transparent if Pat knows that Sam intends to seduce her. Second, the means used by the agent to seduce the other party can be made apparent – this will be labeled “means-transparency” 12. More specifically: when Sam manages to increase Pat’s desire to him by performing an action of seduction φ, this action φ is means-transparent if Pat consciously knows that she is attracted to Sam because he did φ. This subsection will now argue that neither of those kinds of transparency seems to be ethically required in a seduction process. First, requesting the seducer to make his actions intention-transparent does not seem to be a sound moral requirement. In many cases, actions of seduction are intention-transparent anyway: if Sam starts flirting with Pat in a bar, he does not leave much doubt about his own intentions. Also, making one’s seductive intentions transparent may be instrumentally desirable in some situations – it might avoid misunderstanding or awkward situations, or it may reveal self-confidence, which could be attractive. But in some cases, being straightforward about one’s seductive intentions might have negative consequences if the other party does not yet share some minimal degree of attraction (cf. Buss, 2005; Cave, 2014). First, it may be perceived as intrusive by the other party. Second, it may be a risky move, and jeopardize the seduction attempt; and if one agrees that the possibility for people to enter into romantic and/or sexual interactions is a good thing overall, then it 44

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would be problematic to impose a requirement that would threaten the formation of such interactions. Therefore, it seems difficult to view intention-transparency as a general moral requirement. Second, requesting the seducer to refrain from performing seduction actions unless they are means-transparent also does not seem to be a sound moral requirement. The first reason is that in attraction matters, some people may care mainly about how they feel, not about the specific nature of the triggers of attraction. This may be reflected in Rabindranath Tagore’s quote: “Love is an endless mystery, for it has nothing else to explain it.” This quote – at least on some understanding of it – might have been proven wrong by contemporary psychology, which has given evidence of general triggers of love; however, it may also reflect the fact that some people do not need a full explanation to justify their love – and this may also hold for attraction more generally. Sam may not care whether he is unconsciously attracted by Pat because she wears a red dress, or because of her perfume, or because he just went in a roller-coaster ride with her and he misattributes his fear’s arousal: the only thing that may matter to him is that he is attracted to her. The lack of transparency of the triggers of attraction may therefore be a non-issue for a number of people. If we consider that people’s concerns have an ethical relevance, then this is a first argument against the requirement of means-transparency for actions of seduction directed at those individuals. But actually, this non-transparency may even confer a positive value to attraction, as suggested again by the quote above. A number of people value the mystery behind attraction and love, and part of this mystery comes from the non-transparency of the triggers of attraction. This does not mean that attraction is completely mysterious: we are generally aware of some of the features that make someone attractive to us. But there may be other, less discernible features that exert attraction on us, of which we may not be consciously aware; and this ignorance gives some deepness to this attraction, a deepness that seems to be frequently valued positively. Consequently, some of us may prefer to ignore what exactly such triggers are, in order to leave the mystery of attraction intact. To some extent, the situation is similar to a magic show: we are amazed by a magic trick, but we often do not know what are the means used by the prestidigitator, and we may value this ignorance; for many people, a magic trick loses a part of its value when explained. Sam may not realize that his increased desire for Pat is partly due to his misattribution of fear arousal after a roller coaster, or to her new perfume; but he may appreciate the mysterious character of this desire. To summarize: some people may not care about the reasons why they are attracted to someone; and this lack of apparent reasons may even contribute to the value of this attraction, by conferring to it a mysterious deepness. If we consider that one of the criteria of an ethical action of seduction is the satisfaction of people’s 45

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preferences, then this would be a reason to argue that at least some of the triggers of attraction should be kept non-transparent for those people. However, some other people may not value this mystery, and may want to know as much as possible the various triggers of attraction, in order to be aware of the actions that make them attracted. Whose preferences should then be satisfied: people who want those triggers to be transparent, or people who prefer them to remain partially hidden? Fortunately, no group has to be sacrificed for the sake of the other, as people who prefer to be aware of such triggers can consult the widely available literature in psychology of seduction if they want to – the same way curious people may look in various sources for the explanation of their favorite magic trick. By doing so, they can better understand which unconscious sexual desires or related non-sexual motives they may have, and which kind of actions, words or gestures are susceptible to attract them. Thus, people can significantly increase the means-transparency of actions of seduction if they want to, by documenting themselves. Therefore, it does not seem to be morally required to refrain from performing actions of seduction that are intrinsically not means-transparent. To summarize, actions of seduction cannot be considered as problematic just because they circumvent intrinsically rational cognitive capacities (as there are, arguably, no such capacities), nor when they are non-transparent. But to be compatible with autonomy, it seems crucial that seducees are able to resist to such actions if they want to. The next section will therefore argue that actions of seduction may become seriously objectionable if they infringe on willpower capacities.

THE MORAL VALUE OF WILLPOWER Depletion of Willpower Imagine that Sam would be able to hypnotically convince Pat to have sex with him, by putting her in a state of automatic behavior, during which she would be unable to oppose any of his suggestions. It is doubtful that such a hypnotical power could exist, but if it would, its exercise would certainly be seriously morally wrong and should be considered as a form of rape – similar to drugging someone to have sex with him. Imagine now a more realistic scenario in which despite Sam’s long-term courtship of Pat, she does not feel enough attracted to him, and repeatedly turns him away. This does not stop Sam, though, who verbally insists, and comes back to her again and again, offering presents, making her feel guilty, etc. (let’s also suppose that because of the context, Pat cannot escape Sam’s regular presence). This does not change Pat’s desires, but some day, she eventually gives in to Sam’s advances 46

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in a moment of weakness of will13. Although maybe not as wrong as the hypnosis case, such a case of harassment is certainly morally wrong (Conly, 2004). We will here argue that there is something common behind the hypnosis and the harassment scenarios – namely, the partial depletion of Pat’s willpower capacities. When people’s heuristical capacities are triggered, they generally have the capacity to resist to them on the basis of opposing desires or intentions: they can exert willpower. Imagine that after their roller-coaster rides during their first date, Sam suggests to Pat to come with him to his apartment. Pat may feel attracted to Sam14, and she may ignore that she is attracted to him because she misattributes the arousal that originated in the fear she experienced during the roller coaster; but she still has the capacity to notice this attraction and resist to it, in case she has opposing desires or intentions. Suppose that despite her (positive) desire to have sex with Sam, she also has a (negative) desire not to do so – and thus, has conflicting desires. For example, she may feel uncomfortable at the idea of having sex with anyone on a first date; or she may have a relationship commitment to someone else; or she may be unwilling to have sex because of social pressure or religious beliefs. Through which cognitive processes can Pat oppose her attraction to Sam? As analyzed by Saghai (2013a, 2013b; cf. also Stanovich, 2011), there are at least two kinds of capacities relevant in controlling one’s actions and decisions: goalconflict recognition and goal-conflict resolution. Those capacities are closely linked with willpower15, and will thus be called “willpower capacities” in the remainder of the chapter. In the case at hand, Pat’s desire to Sam is increased through unconscious lower-level cognitive processes, misattributing arousal to attraction. Goal-conflict recognition capacities can monitor such processes and detect when they enter into conflict with other desires, such as Pat’s unwillingness to have sex on a first date. In case such a conflict is revealed, higher-level capacities of goal-conflict resolution can then enter into play, such as her capacity to inhibit her propensity to follow her attraction. Those capacities may be deliberative: Pat, for example, may carefully and consciously weigh her newly born attraction for Sam versus her general unwillingness to have sex on a first date, in order to decide what she should do. But as stressed by Saghai (2013b), such capacities might also be non-deliberative: for example, Pat may have endorsed a strict “no sex on a first date” rule, which trumps any kind of conflicting desire, without any need to deliberate about it. Such willpower capacities enable the person to act on the basis of her desires, and are thus important for her autonomy – and as suggested by the hypnosis example, their depletion would be a serious moral wrong. A harassment process such as mentioned above would thus also be wrong – although maybe not to the same extent as hypnosis, as the willpower capacities of the person are only partially depleted. Depletion of willpower capacities should however not be confused with other actions of seduction that will now be presented. 47

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Differentiation with Other Actions To illustrate how depletion of willpower capacities are different from some other actions of seduction, let’s leave Sam and Pat for a while and consider Romeo’s endeavor to seduce Juliette, forgetting all the Shakespearean details of the situation except its basics: on one hand, Juliette feels very attracted to Romeo; on the other hand, she knows that her family does not appreciate Romeo’s family, and – in the present scenario – has a desire to respect her family’s will. Thus, she has two conflicting desires. What are the different actions that Romeo could perform to seduce Juliette? First, Romeo may deploy his charm in order to increase Juliette’s positive desire to him, to the point at which it would outweigh her negative desire to respect her family’s will. In such a case, Juliette’s goal-conflict resolution capacities would be activated, but would eventually decide to become romantically involved with Romeo. Alternatively, Romeo may try to convince her that she should not care about what her family wants. If he manages to do so, he is again leaving intact Juliette’s goal-conflict resolution capacities, but removes the negative desire that was causing the conflict in a first place. Thus, those two actions are immune to the objection of depletion of willpower. As suggested earlier though, this does not imply that they are necessarily ethically correct – they may be morally problematic for other reasons. For example, they may have predictable bad consequences: Juliette may feel on the spot that her attraction for Romeo is stronger (or more important) than her respect of her family’s will, and decide to be romantically involved with him; but she may find out afterwards that she feels bad and emotionally damaged about having “betrayed” her family16. Alternatively, it could be wrong because of a vice involved, such as some form of dishonesty: Romeo, for example, may try to convince Juliette to change her negative desire on the basis of arguments that he considers as fallacious. Finally, it might be wrong for reasons that pertain to the moral weight of the various desires at play. As suggested in the “Background” section of this chapter, some desires might have a higher moral status than others. Maybe Juliette’s desire to Romeo is a first-order desire (or a mere desire), but her desire to respect her family’s will is a second-order desire (or an intention). Or maybe the former is an authentic desire, as it comes from her own feelings, and the latter is a non-authentic desire, being pressed on her by her social environment. In the first cases, it might be wrong for Romeo to seduce Juliette and push her to trump a high-value desire on the basis of a low-value desire; in the second case, it may be wrong for him to stop his efforts and passively let Juliette’s low-value desire trump her high-value desire. If various desires can have different status, then negative actions of seduction might raise more ethical worries than positive ones: a determined rule not to have sex before marriage, or a relationship commitment towards someone else, might 48

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be interpreted as having a higher value than a temporary desire to have sex with someone. As such accounts raise a variety of complex issues, they are beyond the scope of this chapter and will not be investigated further here. The important conclusion, however, is that the increase of positive desire, or the decrease of negative desire, should not be confused with the depletion of willpower capacities. Although the two first actions may be conditionally problematic depending on various factors (such as the likely consequences, the virtues or vices involved, or the nature of the desires at play), the latter may be a categorical wrong due to its interference with a cognitive capacity of a high moral value.

Comparison with Cave’s Account The account that has been developed here can now be compared with Cave’s. Contrarily to the latter, the former does not consider that some decisional capacities (such as deliberative capacities) are intrinsically rational, or that conscious processing is a precondition of rationality, or even that it is intrinsically valuable – unconscious processing might actually be sometimes more valuable than conscious processing in a seduction context. Instead, this account considers as morally relevant the willpower capacities of goal-conflict recognition and resolution. The capacity of goal-conflict resolution might actually be close to what Cave (2014, p. 181) had in mind when he was referring to the “capacity to rationally supplement, winnow, reorder, revise, or retain any of the dispositions capable of moving [people] to action”. However, such a willpower capacity is neither necessarily deliberative, nor intrinsically rational; and its value does not come from considerations of rationality, but from considerations of autonomy17. As a matter of fact, if autonomy is viewed as involving the capacity of an individual to pursue her own conception of the good according to her own will, then her capacities to follow her will – that is, her willpower capacities – are essential to the preservation of her autonomy. It is important to remember that the willpower capacities can be fully operational even in situations in which people’s desires are triggered through unconscious process: even when Sam does not know consciously all the triggers of his attraction, he can become aware of his attraction, and can oppose this desire through the exercise of his willpower capacities. The present account does not single out only one necessary condition for the morally problematic character of actions of seduction, whereas Cave’s account suggests that being “motive altering” and “rationality hampering” unifies all “unsavory seduction” cases18. Rather, the present account proposes a collection of (sufficient) conditions that can each make such an influence problematic, inspired by Blumenthal-Barby (2014)’s account of NRT influences. Such conditions include:

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having bad aims or consequences; involving some vices, such as egoism, dishonesty or disrespect; or depleting cognitive capacities that are essential for autonomy, such as willpower capacities. However, the nontransparent character of some seductive NRT influences does not make them morally problematic according to the present account. Thus, a number of actions of seduction which are deemed problematic in Cave’s account, such as using perfume or deploying one’s charm, would probably not be found morally problematic in the present account (even when they do not provide conscious reasons for desiring the seducer), when they simply generate a positive desire without depleting willpower capacities. Sam may be very charismatic, but if he manages to trigger Pat’s desires without depleting her willpower, then the nature of his actions does not seem to raise ethical worries. The same can be said of Pat’s use of perfume to trigger Sam’s attraction in an unconscious fashion. As usual, however, such actions may raise ethical worries if they are likely to lead to overall bad consequences: for example, if Sam is a very charming person who constantly deploys his magnetism without any thoughts or considerations towards others, leaving behind him emotionally wrecked persons, then his actions are certainly morally problematic. But if he does so in a way that leads to overall good19 consequences for the person(s) he seduces – and for other possible stakeholders – then his actions are not affected by this criticism. On the other hand, some cases whose wrongness cannot be explained by Cave’s account can be explained by such a pluralistic account. Imagine that Pat does not want to have sex with Sam because of her religious belief, and that Sam convinces her through rhetorically flawed arguments that her belief is not warranted (Cave 2014, pp. 196-197). This seduction process does not deplete Pat’s willpower capacities, but it may be wrong for other reasons mentioned by the present account. First, it involves a vice of dishonesty. Second, it may be likely to have bad consequences for Pat; for example, she may realize afterwards that she has been tricked, come back to her religious belief, and end up psychologically damaged for having broken her rule. Or consider the O’s scenario mentioned by Cave (2014, pp. 197-198), in which a woman is pushed into long-lasting submissive sexual behavior by a patriarchal society. As suggested by Cave (2014, p. 199), such a scenario may involve several wrongs, some of which can be explained by the present account: on top of the bad consequences for her, and vices such as misogyny, this involves the weakening of the woman’s willpower capacities.

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FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS To evaluate in which direction the analytic ethics of seduction could now proceed, one could examine the evolution of the academic literature on nudges. Nudges are interventions that aim at influencing people to make a better choice, while leaving them free to chose otherwise – such as presenting healthy food upfront and at eye level in a cafeteria, or stipulating that people are organ donors by default, and can opt out if they want to. After having been introduced by Sunstein and Thaler (2003), nudges have been often criticized as interfering with the agent’s autonomy (Hausman & Welch 2010); similarly, a large range of seduction practices have been condemned (Cave 2014). Critical investigations concerning the transparency of nudges (Bovens 2009), or the psychological mechanisms through which their influence can be resisted (Saghai 2013a, 2013b), have been detailed – and the present chapter has aimed at adapting such insights to the question of seduction. Subsequently, the literature on nudging has been progressively refined, and criticisms have been differentiated by analysing each nudge in much more detail, showing that although some of them are problematic (Guala & Mittone, 2015), others may actually be compatible or even improve the autonomy of the nudgee (Mills, 2015; Nagatsu, 2015). The academic literature on the ethics of seduction may now proceed the same way – by analysing what may be morally problematic in specific actions of seduction in a real-world context, and refraining from blanket conclusions that would be unwarranted.

CONCLUSION Positive actions of seduction, which aim at increasing a desire towards the agent, have been differentiated from negative ones, which aim at decreasing a conflicting desire. Some actions of seduction fail to track reasons – a feature that may constitute the core of manipulative actions (Gorin, 2014) – but this does not imply that they are morally wrong. Rather, their moral valence should be evaluated across different criteria, as proposed by Blumenthal-Barby (2014), such as: their aims and consequences; the vices and virtues they involve; and how they interfere with autonomy. In order to determine the extent of this interference with autonomy, it was important to determine whether some actions of seduction may interfere with supposedly rational capacities, or whether their non-transparency would make them problematic. This chapter has shown that the exercise of both heuristical and deliberative capacities of decision-making can be ecologically rational if they optimally lead to the satisfaction of the agent’s preferences given real-world constraints; therefore, there are no intrinsically rational capacities in this sense. Moreover, the non-transparent character of some triggers of attraction may be a non-issue, or even confer a deep51

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ness to attraction, which some people may find valuable; and those who do not value such a lack of transparency can consult the literature in psychology of seduction to be aware of those triggers. Thus, influences that trigger non-deliberative faculties or non-conscious cognitive processing are not inherently objectionable, although they may certainly be morally problematic in situations where they would probably lead to bad consequences for the person who is being seduced. Other cognitive capacities are morally valuable though, namely willpower capacities underlying goal-conflict recognition and resolution; they enable people to navigate between the various desires and influences they are subjected to, and their depletion would be morally wrong, because it would preclude them from following their own will – a precondition of autonomy. Such a depletion should however not be confused with increasing positive desires or decreasing negative desires, which do not raise similar moral issues. Although having some similarities with the account presented by Cave (2009, 2014), this chapter draws significantly different conclusions: on one hand, some relatively common actions of seduction (such as using perfume or deploying one’s charm in a non-transparent way), which are considered as morally problematic by Cave, are here considered as immune to such moral objections; and on the other hand, the present account can explain the moral wrongness of some scenarios which cannot be accounted for by Cave’s theory. This chapter has thus provided an account of the ethics of actions of seduction that is both credible and compatible with contemporary cognitive models.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT The author would like to thank Antoine Wegroswki, Dimitri Schritt and Anaëlle Louazon for their constructive comments on the manuscript. The views and opinions expressed in this chapter are those of the author alone.

REFERENCES Blumenthal-Barby, J. S. (2014). A Framework for Assessing the Moral Status of Manipulation. In C. Coons & M. Weber (Eds.), Manipulation: Theory and Practice (pp. 121–134). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:o so/9780199338207.003.0006 Bovens, L. (2009). The Ethics of Nudge. In T. Grüne-Yanoff & S. O. Hansson (Eds.), Preference Change, Theory and Decision Library (pp. 207–219). Springer Netherlands. 52

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Buss, S. (2005). Valuing Autonomy and Respecting Persons: Manipulation, Seduction, and the Basis of Moral Constraints. Ethics, 115(2), 195–235. doi:10.1086/426304 Cave, E. M. (2009). Unsavory Seduction. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 12(3), 235–245. doi:10.1007/s10677-009-9163-9 Cave, E. M. (2014). Unsavory seduction and manipulation. In C. Coons & M. Weber (Eds.), Manipulation: Theory and Practice (pp. 176–200). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199338207.003.0009 Conly, S. (2004). Seduction, rape, and coercion. Ethics, 115(1), 96–121. doi:10.1086/421981 Coons, C., & Weber, M. (2014). Manipulation: Theory and Practice. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199338207.001.0001 Frankfurt, H. G. (1988). The importance of what we care about: Philosophical essays. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511818172 Gigerenzer, G., & Todd, P. M. (1999). Simple heuristics that make us smart. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Gorin, M. (2014). Towards a Theory of Interpersonal Manipulation. In C. Coons & M. Weber (Eds.), Manipulation: Theory and Practice (pp. 73–97). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199338207.003.0004 Grill, K. (2013). Normative and non-normative concepts: Paternalism and libertarian paternalism. In Ethics in Public Health and Health Policy (pp. 27–46). Springer. doi:10.1007/978-94-007-6374-6_3 Guala, F., & Mittone, L. (in press). A Political Justification of Nudging. Review of Philosophy and Psychology. Retrieved from http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/ s13164-015-0241-8 Hausman, D. M., & Welch, B. (2010). Debate: To Nudge or Not to Nudge. Journal of Political Philosophy, 18(1), 123–136. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9760.2009.00351.x Hinton, G. E. (1990). Mapping part-whole hierarchies into connectionist networks. Artificial Intelligence, 46(1), 47–75. doi:10.1016/0004-3702(90)90004-J Hursthouse, R. (2013). Virtue Ethics. In E. N. Zalta (Éd.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2013/ entries/ethics-virtue/ Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. London: Macmillan.

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Kruglanski, A. W., & Gigerenzer, G. (2011). Intuitive and deliberate judgments are based on common principles. Psychological Review, 118(1), 97–109. doi:10.1037/ a0020762 PMID:21244188 Mills, C. (in press). The Heteronomy of Choice Architecture. Review of Philosophy and Psychology. Retrieved from http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13164015-0242-7 Nagatsu, M. (in press). Social Nudges: Their Mechanisms and Justification. Review of Philosophy and Psychology. Retrieved from http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/ s13164-015-0245-4 Saghai, Y. (2013a). Salvaging the concept of nudge. Journal of Medical Ethics, 39(8), 487–493. doi:10.1136/medethics-2012-100727 PMID:23427215 Saghai, Y. (2013b). The concept of nudge and its moral significance: A reply to Ashcroft, Bovens, Dworkin, Welch and Wertheimer. Journal of Medical Ethics, 39(8), 499–501. doi:10.1136/medethics-2012-101112 PMID:23427216 Samuels, R., Stich, S., & Bishop, M. (2002). Ending the Rationality Wars: How to Make Disputes About Human Rationality Disappear. In Common Sense, Reasoning and Rationality (pp. 236–268). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/0195147669.003.0011 Schroeder, T. (2015). Desire. In E. N. Zalta (Éd.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2015/entries/desire/ Spellecy, R. (2003). Reviving Ulysses contracts. Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, 13(4), 373–392. doi:10.1353/ken.2004.0010 PMID:15049305 Stanovich, K. (2011). Rationality and the reflective mind. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Stanovich, K. E., & West, R. F. (2000). Advancing the rationality debate. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 23(5), 701–717. doi:10.1017/S0140525X00623439 PMID:11301544 Sunstein, C. R., & Thaler, R. H. (2003). Libertarian paternalism is not an oxymoron. The University of Chicago Law Review. University of Chicago. Law School, 70(4), 1159–1202. doi:10.2307/1600573

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KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Autonomy: The capacity of an individual to determine and pursue her own conception of the good according to her own will. Ecologically Rational: Quality of a decision strategy that satisfies the preferences of the agent in a specific environment, given real-world constraints such as time pressure, complexity of the environment, deliberative costs, etc. Heuristic: A decision strategy that operates in a fast and frugal way (it uses only a small part of the available information). They are contrasted to deliberative strategies, which are slow and use a large part of the available information. Intention-Transparent: Quality of a seduction process performed by an agent to seduce another party, when the other party consciously knows that the agent intends to seduce her. Manipulative Influence: An influence that does not track reasons: either the manipulator does not provide reasons, or he provides reasons without any concern for their justificatory value, only taking into account the causal effect they may have on the manipulee. In this chapter, such an influence is called a “non-reasontracking” (NRT) influence. Means-Transparent: Quality of an action of seduction performed by an agent to seduce another party, when the other party consciously knows that she is attracted to the agent because he performed this action. Negative Action of Seduction: An action that aims at preventing the apparition or decreasing a desire that conflicts with the romantic and/or sexual desire towards the agent. Positive Action of Seduction: An action that aims to give birth to or increase a romantic and/or sexual desire towards the agent. Willpower Capacities: Goal-conflict recognition and goal-conflict resolution capacities.

ENDNOTES

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2

In the following scenarios, Sam and Pat are human adults, psychologically competent and able to consent, of any sex or gender. Whenever a specific sex is specified or implied, Sam will be a man and Pat a woman. The present chapter will assume that consensual sex or relationship between such agents does not raise any moral issue, and concentrate on the morality of the seduction process itself. In this chapter, “sexual desire” and “sexual attraction” will be used interchangeably – although sexual desire could be construed as a general, non-directed 55

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desire, and sexual attraction as a sexual desire directed towards a specific person. Also, according to this chapter’s understanding of the notion of desire, if Pat has a sexual desire towards Sam (that is, if she’s sexually attracted to him), then this implies that she has a desire to have sex with him. This does not necessarily imply that she has a preference, all things taken into account, to have sex with him (rather than not to have sex with him): as a matter of fact, she may hold several conflicting desires, which all together do not lead to such a preference. Thus, no position will be taken on whether desires are dispositions to act, episodes of pleasure, belief in goodness or reward-based learning; on whether sexual desires are desires for persons, or for state-of-affairs; and on whether the desires involved are standing or occurrent (for a review of those distinctions, see Schroeder, 2015). Note that perfume can attract either consciously or unconsciously. If Sam consciously likes Pat’s perfume, this gives him a reason to be attracted to her. In some other cases, however, he may not realize that the smell does trigger his attraction – especially if it has been used in moderation. “Morally problematic” will be used as in Cave’s (2014) account, standing in-between “categorically immoral” and “morally innocuous”: a morally problematic action violates a moral norm, but this moral norm may not be of “overriding importance, and must be traded off against various other moral constraints in various contexts” (Cave, 2014, p. 189). We do not use the term “non-argumentative influence” proposed by BlumenthalBarby (2014): despite its adequacy in most cases, it may suggest that manipulative influence never use arguments, which does not fit with some examples of manipulative behavior, such as Gorin (2014)’s example of a cynical politician who provides good arguments to voters only because it is the best strategy for him to remain in a position of power. For an overview of virtue ethics, see Hursthouse (2013). Note that one can accept that some virtues or vices are morally relevant without subscribing to an account of virtue ethics: vices may make an action of seduction morally problematic by raising the probability of bad consequences or autonomy loss for the seducee, in which case a consequentialist or deontological theory could account of them. A more detailed investigation of this thesis is out of reach of the present chapter. See Gorin (2014) for considerations of whether manipulative actions can respect autonomy or not, according to various conceptions of autonomy. Although not all dual-system theorists have associated deliberation with rationality, some of them have held this view (see e.g. Hinton, 1990).

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Given those similarities between heuristical and deliberative capacities, Kruglanski & Gigerenzer (2011) argue in favor of a unimodel of decision-making. As a matter of fact, deliberative and heuristical faculties might be seen as two poles on a unified spectrum of decision-making capacities. This chapter will simply mention heuristical and deliberative capacities without taking any position on this question. For a quite different argument that manipulation does not always infringe on the rational capacities of the decision-maker, see Gorin (2014). For a literary example of a seduction process that satisfies both conditions of transparency, see Belle du Seigneur by Albert Cohen, in which Solal makes clear to Ariane that he is going to seduce her, and explains in detail how he is going to proceed. Such a case has similarities with Tess’ seduction by Alex (Tess of the d’Urbervilles), but the present case makes clear that Pat gives in because of weakness of will, and that no physical force or verbal threat has been used by Sam. Presumably, the misattribution of fear is unlikely to trigger substantially Pat’s attraction – she would probably need other sources of attraction to build a significant sexual desire towards Sam; but this chapter considers here a simplified, fictional thought experiment. Note however that goal-conflict recognition can also include the capacity to recognize and correct erroneous, spontaneous forms of reasoning (Saghai, 2013a), a capacity that should arguably not be labeled as a “willpower capacity”. But this capacity will not be the focus of interest here, and will therefore be ignored. Also, a full analysis of the various definitions of willpower exceeds the purpose of the present chapter. The opposite scenario may also occur: if Romeo would have refrained from seducing Juliette because of her hesitation, she may regret afterwards that she has silenced her own inner desires and feelings for the sake of her family. In Cave’s account, the value of the capacity he mentions also hinges on considerations from autonomy, as he considers that autonomy and “rational capacities” are related. In the present account, autonomy is instead first and foremost related to willpower capacities. Cave recognizes that a pluralistic account may be needed, but still thinks that being motive altering and rationality hampering loosely unifies all cases of unsavory seduction (Cave, 2014, p. 199). The goodness or badness of consequences may however be sometimes difficult to evaluate – this is a general epistemic issue for most consequentialist criteria, which may be especially pronounced in interpersonal relationship matters.

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Chapter 3

On Seduction:

A Romantic Conversation Simber Atay Dokuz Eylül University, Turkey

ABSTRACT Seduction is a sexual act, a sex instinct expression, a love practice, a body performance, a psychoanalytical problematic, a philosophical issue, a creative strategy full of phantasies from art to politics, from advertising to entertainment, from personal intimacy to mass-media. Seduction is basis of strip-tease profession, of course! But it is also a cultural metaphor. Seduction is an indispensable part of acting in performing arts. In cinema, actors and actress seduce spectators. In photography, photographer and photographed one, they seduce reciprocally. Seduction has very strong mythological origins. On the other hand, superman of Nietzsche, gaze of Bataille, objet petit a of Lacan are some adequate contemporary parameters to discuss the seduction concept. In this context, Le Samuraϊ (1967) of Jean-Pierre Melville, Magic Mike (2012) of Steven Soderbergh, Jupiter Ascending (2015) of Lana and Andy (Lilly) Wachowski are our cinematographic examples. Eikoh Hosoe’s project ‘Barakei’ (1961), Duane Michals’ project ‘Questions without Answers’ (2001), Mehmet Turgut’s self-portrait series (2000’s) are our photographic examples. Within the text, we evaluate all these popular culture examples by using the mentioned parameters to describe what the seduction is.

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-0525-9.ch003 Copyright ©2017, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

On Seduction

A MYTHOLOGICAL INTRODUCTION Mircea Eliade has pointed out in The Myth of the Eternal Return: “even in the simplest human societies, “historical” memory, that is, the recollection of events that derive from no archetype, the recollection of personal events (“sins” in the majority of cases), is intolerable” (Eliade, 1994, p.80). In this sense, archetypes are important for the consciousness of archaic man, and popular memory could not retain anything but archetypes. (Eliade, 1994, p.57) For traditional man, the eternal return is, within the scope of mythological belief systems, “a re-actualization of the mythical moment when the archetype was revealed for the first time” (Eliade, 1994, p.81) due to related rituals and ceremonies. Consequently, these ceremonies too, which are neither periodic nor collective, suspend the flow of profane time, of duration, and project the celebrant into a mythical time, in illo tempore (Eliade, 1994, p.76). This mythological re-actualization is generally the equivalent of the desire for a cosmic “new life” (Eliade, 1994, p.131) setup beyond historical time coordinates. So archetypes are elements that constantly build modern Arcadia in the unconscious. Therefore, the primitive and classical mythology culture is an effective rhetoric context for our daily aesthetic experiences –both art criticism and artistic creation- within Aby Warburg’s Nachleben logic. If we mention Warburg’s Nachleben briefly: “ In Warburg’s work, the term Nachleben refers to the survival (the continuity or afterlife and metamorphous) of images and motifs –as opposed to their renascence after extinction or, conversely, then replacement by innovations in image and motif … Formed within the context of Renaissance studies –a field associated by definition with revival and innovation – Warburg’s concept of survival assumed a temporal model for art history radically different from any employed at the time” (Didi-Huberman, 2003, pp. 273-285). In this sense, Eliadian innocence of the existence of archetypes obtained by human mind through repetitive eternal return and Warburgian immortality of archetypes were analyzed by Roland Barthes, and the approach he made is still valid even today. Barthes explained the contemporary meaning of myths as follows: “Myth does not deny things, on the contrary, its function is to talk about them; simply, it purifies them, it makes them innocent, it gives them a natural and eternal justification, it gives them a clarity which is not that of an explanation but that of a statement of fact (Barthes, 2005, p.58)…” Myth is constituted by the loss of the historical quality of things: in it, things lose the memory that they once were made. The World enters language as a dialectical relation between activities, between human actions; it comes out of myth as a harmonious display of essences” (Barthes, 2005, p.51).

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Classical mythology is the source of inspiration and energy for humanity. Mythology does not only generate cultural and artistic examples through existing myths, it also puts into display the mechanism of being myth/creating myth. That fantasy world provides metaphors for an independent rhetoric; mythological patterns protect the harmony of universe. Today, mythology has achieved too many sublime interpretation thanks to digital technologies, software possibilities and the Internet. Therefore, cultural power of myths’ vivacity always forms a free territory that could not be restricted by daily, conventional moral patterns and that we could study whether its mythology, related artworks and potential transgressive properties are metaphorical or not. At this point, when we trace the seduction, which is an authentic transgression - love is its environment; sex is its medium - in Classical Greek Mythology:

Pitho, Peitho (Soft Speech of Love) or Suada, Suadela “She was the goddess of persuasion, and, like the Graces, formed part of the escort of Aphrodite, whose daughter she was said to be. Her worship, along with Aphrodite, was introduced into Athens by Theseus, at the time when he succeeded in persuading the various isolated tribes inability Attica to unite into one people, with Athens as their chief town. But she has temples in other places also, and was looked on as a deity to whose influence much was due” (Murray, 1954, p.199). Peito was described as too close to Love, also in ancient artistic works. “In the frame of ‘Representation of the deities assembled in Olympus for a particular occasion’… in the scene at the birth of Aphrodite, in presence of the assembled deities, with which Phidias adorned the base of his statue of Zeus at Olympia, and of which we have still the description in Pausanias. At one end was the sun stepping into his chariot, next to him Zeus and Hera, then Hephaestus and Charis, then Hermes and Hestia. In the center of was Eros receiving Aphrodite as she rises from the sea, and Peitho crowning Aphrodite; then Apollo and Artemis, next Athena and Hercules, then Poseidon and Amphitrite, and lastly the Moon (Selena) riding away. The deities are thus grouped in pairs of male and female, those of greater importance being toward either end of the composition” (Murray, 1954, p.24).

Zeus Seduction is a pure phantasy –artistic or not-matter. In this context, let’s remind ourselves Zeus’ self-transformations: He transformed himself into a white bull for Europa’s love; into a shower of gold for Danae’s love; into an eagle for Ganymedes’ love; into a swan for Leda’s love etc.

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Transformation for love as a strategy of seduction is a common case exceeding love adventures of Zeus. In exchange for seduction, even though the seduction process is completed, there are other mythological examples portraying the immortal love of the seducer and the seduced one on a symbolic level: Adonis transformed into anemone, Ariadne transformed into constellation and sometimes, as the price of not being seduced like Daphne as symbol of counter-seduction.

Aion and Kairos Seduction is a question of time process. This process is a special one that happens always in present time. Otherwise seduction’s notion loses its core meaning. Literally, in Choderlos de Laclos’ famous book, Les Liaisons Dangeureuses’, one of novel’s characters, Vicomte de Valmont’s glorious declaration of his seduction success over Madame de Tourvel indicates the definitive end of his life “sans souci” and his joyful vanity; this sexual victory becomes tragic beginning of his miserable decline. Due to that seduction duration, two time designs generated by classical culture have intertwined, so to speak: Aion and Kairos! Aion, experiential time is often presented as the other of chronology, the public, shared and communitarian time…the only way we can measure Aion is through an idea of individual experiential “duration” (Honkanen, 2007, p.8). However, the Homeric determination above related to our subject is only one definition of Aion accordingly, Aion means also life of a human (Keizer, 2010, p.18-22). Since John of Damascus, a philosopher in Early Christianity suggested: “The word Aion has many meanings”; according to his interpretation again, “Aion: eternity; not time nor a part of time but coextensive with the everlasting beings” (Keizer, 2010, p. 12). Kairos is the happy moment in which things and the man who is related to them is terms decision and cetion, remain in an unstable equilibrium… Kairos reveals the quality of the time” (Zacaria Ruggiὺ, pp. 315-316). Therefore, seducer people and seduced ones are heroes of their aionic times woven by kairos instantaneous.

Narcissus In this context, one of the most important figures of classical mythology is Narcissus. Narcissus saw his own reflection in the water and fell in love with it. He fell in love with his own beauty. But he is both the seducer and the seduced one. Since there is a different interpretation of the story too; In André Gide’s memoriam about Oscar Wilde, he met Wilde in 1891 when he arrived to Paris. In Gide’s opinion, Wilde who were liken to Bacchus, a Roman emperor, Apollo due to its handsomeness, 61

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intelligence, knowledge, wittiness, wealth has glared during those dates (Gide, 1962, p.38). “...We left after dinner. As my two friends were walking together, Wilde took me aside: “You listen with your eyes,” he said to me. That’s why I’m going to tell you this story: When Narcissus died, the flowers of the field asked the river for some drops of water to weep for him. –‘Oh!’ answered the river, ‘If all my drops of water were tears, I should not have enough to weep for Narcissus myself. I loved him!’ –‘Oh!’ replied the flowers of the field, ‘how could you not have loved Narcissus? He was beautiful.’ –‘Was he beautiful?’ said the river. –‘And who should know better than you? In the mirror of your waters he would mirror his own beauty... Wilde paused for a moment and continued... –And the river answered: ‘But I loved Narcissus because, as he lay on my banks and looked down at me, in the mirror of his eyes I saw ever my own beauty mirrored.’ Wilde then raised an awkward laugh and finished his sentence, as he was saying something very important: … the name of this story is: The Disciple. (Gide, 1962, pp.39-40) Then they became friends. The master Wilde tells many moral stories like this to the disciple Gide. Griffin touched upon Narcissus through her feminist interpretation by putting forward Echo in the Ovid’s Metamorphoses: Ovid’s story of Echo and Narcissus is, then, precisely about the gaze and voice as love objects a, as it forms an almost-tangible connection between himself and his reflection, which his gaze appends as the object of his desire, yet which is impossible to possess. (Griffin, 2015, p.73) However, in Wilde’s interpretation Echo is already deleted, Narcissus is blurred and has become the protagonist of the mirroring river story, and the truth is different: Narcissus is not an object of desire neither for Echo nor himself. He belongs to the river. The river admits that it has watched itself in the gaze of Narcissus. And of course, this is an impossible relationship. Hence in this context, the river transforms into a surprising subject and Narcissus transforms into an objet petit a again.

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Ethical and aesthetical features of Narcissus’s story have contributed a modern critical point of view to take shape in time. Therefore, Narcissism is being used as a metaphor of criticism in interpretations about mass culture and mass media due to connotations raised from its transgressive ethical nature. Criticism on narcissism initiated by Charles Baudelaire (Benjamin, 2010, p.25) in 19th century is still valid globally, and narcissism becomes increasingly intense everyday due to mass media, Internet, social media, advertising sector and selfie practice in our lives. According to Baudelaire: “in matters of painting and sculpture present-day Credo of the sophisticated, above all in France (and I do not think that anyone at all would dare to state the contrary), is this: ‘I believe in Nature, and I believe only in Nature (there are good reasons for that). I believe that Art is, and cannot be other than, the exact reproduction of Nature (a timid and dissident sect would wish to exclude the more repellent objects of nature, such as skeletons or chamber-pots). Thus an industry that could give us a result identical to Nature would be the absolute of art.’ A revengeful God has given ear to prayers of this multitude. Daguerre was his Messiah. And now the faithful says to himself: ‘since Photography gives us every guarantee of exactitude that we could desire (they really believe that, the mad fools!), then Photography and Art are the same thing’. From that moment our squalid society rushed, Narcissus to man, to gaze at its trivial image on a scrap of metal. A madness, an extraordinary fanaticism took possession of all these new sun-worshippers” (Baudelaire, 1998, p.667).

LE SAMURAϊ Le Samuraï (1967), directed by Jean Pierre Melville, led by Alain Delon is one of the most remarkable examples of 1960’s French Cinema. It is created by Auteur Theory (Delon, 1967). It is an exceptional work combining the poetic style of Melville and sophisticated performance of Delon. The movie begins with this citation from Bushido (Sacred book of Samuraï): There is no greater solitude/ than that of the Samuraï/unless it is that of the tiger/ in the jungle…perhaps. In the movie, Jeff Costello is a hitman. However, he seduces the audience with his loneliness, quietness, and exceptional handsomeness. Delon’s characters in those years often die at the end of movies like Jeff Costello and a mass jouissance is experienced due to Delon’s aura, Costello’s cool indifference and catharsis of the audience. This tragic hero of the world of crime has a supra-systemic position beyond the law, justice, police, de facto moral values. He is untouchable and intact. The audience watches him as he is what he is. Just because, this movie and its protagonist symbolize Beauty: “The image of beauty as that of a single and dif-

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ferentiated something originates with the emancipation from the fear of the over powering wholeness and undifferentiatedness of nature. The shudder in the face of this is rescued by beauty into itself by making itself impervious to the immediately existent; beauty; Works become beautiful by the force of their opposition to what simply exists.” (Adorno, 1997, p.51) He becomes also an antagonist of the system along with being a criminal. The political quality of this antagonism is surely ambiguous. However, in 1960’s where a sensitivity full of desire containing revolution and emancipation heavily exists, the presence of aforementioned romantic hero matches up with common expectations. The specific individualist perspective of French New Wave is an important factor in this sense. On the other hand, Jeff Costello/ Alain Delon represents also an existentialist ethics. Jean-Paul Sartre explained this existentialist ethics by comparing the art of painting and morality as: “...there are no aesthetic values a priori. But there are values which will appear in due course in the coherence of the picture, in the relation between the will to create and the finished work. No one can tell what the painting of tomorrow will be like. One cannot judge a painting until it is done. Let’s ask: What has to do with morality? “We are in the same creative situation... We understand very well that the composition became what it is at the time when the artist was painting it, and that his works are part and parcel of his entire life. “It is the same upon the plane of morality. There is this in common between art and morality, that in both we have to do with creation and invention. We cannot decide a priori what it is that should be done. Man makes himself by the choice of his morality… Man is condemned, obliged to be free. Condemned, because he did not create himself. Yet he is nevertheless at liberty, and from the moment that he is thrown into this world he is responsible for everything he does. The existentialist does not believe in the power of passion... He will never regard the passion as an excuse for destructive actions. He thinks that man is responsible for his passion. Neither will an existentialist think that a man can find help through some sign being vouchsafed upon earth for his orientation” (Sartre, 1960, pp.42-43).

MAGIC MIKE Magic Mike (2012) is a very popular example of Steven Soderbergh’s eclectic poetica. The synopsis of the movie is: “Tampa based Mike Lane has long worked several jobs to reach his life goals. Of those jobs, he would like solely to design and build custom furniture, his dream to start his own business doing so. But the job that pays the biggest bills is that of stripper, he now the star attraction among the stable of men working at Xqusite, a male strip club owned and operated by Dallas,

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a former male stripper himself who has his own dreams of a having a strip club empire. Mike has no issue with the stripping job, but knows he can only do it for so long… (Huggo, 2012). Obviously, striptease is a profession. It is a type of entertainment based on erotic contemplation. In the patriarchal society logic, it is assumed to be performed by women in general. Magic Mike gives a surprise in the first place since it is about the journey of a male stripper –even though we know that men also perform. Striptease artist unavoidably displays a narcissistic performance. Displaying sexuality is a provocative act. But at the same time, there is a meta-sex going on between stripper and audience. The audience experiences a Tantalesque jouissance in this scopophilic environment. Macho audience tries to satisfy his own narcissism when he watches female stripper. It is the same when female audience watches male stripper. She satisfies her own narcissism too. But due to the “second sex” problematic, which is also the title of Simone de Beauvoir’s famous work, female audience does experience her narcissism like an act of emancipation. The only common ground for the male, female, queer… striptease variations is the fact that they all represent the same phallocentric complex. Striptease and seduction form a metonymic combination together. After all, the purpose is seduction. However, this is a manufactured seduction. This a staged, scrutinized repetition of every aspects of the matter. Barthes defines professional striptease being a combination of music, costume, setting, make-up, and dance as “meticulous exorcism of sex” (Barthes, 1991, p.86). In Magic Mike, the aforementioned pornographic ritual takes place through several mise-en-scѐnes –naturally accompanied with naive, pornographic, fictional stories which are left incomplete since the show is already started. On the other hand, seduction forms an artificial, transient environment of freedom beyond coordinates of reality. This applies both to the seducer and the seduced. But, love is not freedom. In the logic/illogicality of seduction, however, love and freedom have got inside metonymic combinations. “Love is defined by Sartre as seduction of the Other by which I attempt to get hold of the other’s freedom while at the same time incarnating the Other as flesh, facticity, objectivity, body” (Gordon, 1999, p.277). This movie is a great opportunity for gender studies but the irony is the fact that potential discussions are directly the context of the film, and in the end, the two global seducers, Matthew McConaughey and Channing Tatum create a counterfeminist power illusion through their interpretations and performances.

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LORD BALEM “…And Zarathustra spake thus unto the people: I teach you the Superman…The superman is the meaning of the earth…” (Nietzsche, 1927. p.6) This expression is very poetical but who is this superman? Is it Lord Balem, the emperor of Abrasax planet or Caine Wise, the interstaller hunter? In other words, is it Zarathustra’s superman emanated from the death of God or DC Comics’ superman? Andy and Lana Wachowski’s movie provides a superman’s multiplicity due to this obscurity. Jupiter Ascending (2015) is some kind of a science-fiction cinderella story. However it is not the prince (Lord Balem’s brother, Titus Abrasax) but the hunter who gives happy ending to the female protagonist Jupiter. Jupiter Ascending is also a romantic comedy. Ironic nature of the movie originates from the features of Jupiter that define Balem paradoxically: Jupiter, with a Russian surviving instinct, is a hardworker symbolizing the American jouissance – always doing the necessary and having the self-confidence of ordinariness. However, due to her name’s meaning – given because of her father’s passion for astronomy – Jupiter is very ambitious and strong person. Mythological connotations of the word Jupiter causes also ironic resonances. Balem has had to cope also with Jupiter but surprisingly, was defeated. On the other hand, Jupiter is only a tool for Titus and their marriage is a guise. As Zarathustra said: “Oh how could I not be ardent for Eternity and for the marriage –ring of rings-the ring of the return? Never yet have I found the woman by whom I should like to have children, unless it be this woman whom I love: for I love thee, O Eternity! For I love thee, O Eternity! (Nietzsche, 1927, p.257). Lord Balem which is performed with a sophisticated romantic interpretation by Eddie Redmayne has built an universal eugenics industry. His plan is to deliver raw material by harvesting people on earth. His goal is to produce an elixir for eternal life. Balem gives the impression of an ambiguous and charming gender identity that has queer or straight nuances according to the setting. His narcissist existence is based upon his passion for universality and eternity. Once again, as Zarathustra said: “Voluptuousness, passion for power and selfishness…these three things will I weigh humanly well “(Nietzsche, 1927, p.208).

BARAKEI Images constituting the Eikoh Hosoe’s photo-book named Barakei (translated to English as Killed by Roses or Ordeal by Roses or Punishment of Roses) rank among the classics of World History of Photography.

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These black-and-white photographs are result of the powerful collaboration formed by Eikoh Hosoe and Yukio Mishima in 1961-1962. The first edition of the book was published in 1963. Second edition was published in 1971: “Mishima has arranged for the publication to coincide with his suicide. The book itself was a part of his rehearsed death. The end of the book involved changes in the color of the ink in the superb gravure printing. The imagery became complex, multilayered and seemingly solarized… Tadanori Yokoo, who has been called “Hokusai of our time” designed the book. It was bound in black velvet and placed in a slipcase of white cloth stamped with red Japanese characters.” (Holborn, 1999, pp.16-18) This project is a synthesis of two perfectionists, Hosoe and Mishima’s creativities. But Mishima is a dominant figure as a highly unorthodox model. He delivers a baroque performance by interpreting references from his own poetica through his body which is a masterpiece of bodybuilding. This performance overlaps with Hosoe’s mannerism. At this point, let’s take a look at Chapter 5 of Camera Lucida in which Roland Barthes has mentioned subjects such as having one’s photo taken, sitting, expectations of the sitter from the photographer, comparison of portraiture/ portrait photography etc. According to Barthes, in a portrait photography: “Four image-repertoires intersect, oppose and distort each other. In front of the lens, I am at the same time: the one I think I am, the one I want others to think I am, the one the photographer thinks I am, and the one he makes use of to exhibit his art.” (Barthes, 1992 p.22). If we implement this equation to Barakei, the result would be Mishima=Mish ima=Mishima=Mishima, in other words Hosoe’s photographs are phenomena of an absolute portrait. Barthes goes on as: “In terms of image-repertoire, the Photograph (the one I intend) represents that very subtle moment when, to tell the truth, I am neither subject nor object but a subject who feels he is becoming an object: I then experience a micro-version of death (of parenthesis): I am truly becoming a specter” (Barthes, 1999, p.23). Barthes who turned the photograph into a life/death metonymy as a phenomenon and activity in Camera Lucida, and Mishima who transformed the idea of death into a basic parameter of his work and his life! Marguerite Yourcenar states that she was very impressed by ‘On Hagakure’ (1967), the book that Mishima wrote by the inspiration of 18th century samurai spirit and quotes from this book: “… imagine the moment you will die. Die in your thoughts every morning and you will no longer fear death.” (Yourcenar, 2011, p.92). As we all know, Barthes wrote Camera Lucida based on a childhood photograph of her beloved mother –Winter Garden, 1898, which we can never see, only described – to find solace after her death.

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On the other hand, Barakei is a macabre representation of Mishima’s death which is a perfect romantic design just as his life. Throughout the photographs, Mishima demonstrates his existence with Hosoe by approaching some paintings of Renaissance artists – such as Rafaello, Perugino, Titian, Reni, Botticelli who were envisioned for this project – as an interface between himself and multiplicity of himself. The ghost of Barthes’ mother as a little girl! Mishima as a ghost of Le Musée Imaginaire! With Barthes’ words, his portrait: “Ultimately, what I am seeking in the photograph taken of me (the “intention” according to which I look at it) is Death: Death is the eidos of that photograph.” (Barthes, 1999, p.24). Let’s discuss some examples in Barakei: The composition of the photograph in Barakei #16 has three horizontal parts. From top to down, there are two young and beautiful bodies who are tight-knit in void so to speak; in the middle part, a woman figure composed of the lower half of her body that clearly takes as a reference Titian’s Venus of Urbino (1538) and Giorgione’s Venus which was completed by Titian after Giorgione’s death at 1510 (Hagen& Hagen, 2002, p.145), but also composed of white and round objects at close quarters in the darkness covering the upper half of her body; and at the lower part there is naked Mishima who tied his hands on his head and stays in foreshortening in the dark void. Mood for an erotic dream! Hosoe and Mishima have constructed a phenomenology of eroticism that is floatable in black-and-white, rigid, contrast, endless space. This and the other photographs in Barakei represent Mishima and also synthetize his gaze. What are surrealistic objects in the layer where Venus is set? Pearls of Venus or the eyeball, egg, testicle metaphors of Georges Bataille? Bataille’s work, the Story of the Eye in which these aforementioned elements exist is a pornographic text but also the foundation of Bataille’s theory of eroticism. The story of the Eye is “the story of an object” beyond its heroes and events (Barthes, 2001, p.59). Yet again, according to Barthes: “The Eye seems, then, the matrix of a new trajectory of objects which are in a sense different ‘stations’ of the ocular metaphor. The first variation is that of the eye and egg; this is a double variation, both of form (in French, the two words, oeil and oeuf have a common sound and a differentiated sound) and of content (although absolutely discrepant, both object are globular and white). Once posited as invariant elements, whiteness and rotundity permit new metaphorical tensions.... (Barthes, 2001, p.61). The approach to the “metonymic eroticism” (Barthes, 2001, p.66), hence to the pornographic act generated by the mutual use of the functions of eye and eye metaphors is more transgressive than the act itself.

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When we think of Barakei #16 yet again, the eroticism of two interlocked bodies in the photograph involves an ambiguous – hetero, homo, auto -sexuality. As a copy of Venus of Urbino, we cannot see her eyes. The only thing that is perfectly clear is the gaze of Mishima. White and round objects are the focus of an out-of-category misogynistic desire. However in a chapter of Confessions of a Mask, the book written by Mishima with an autobiographical feel, the protagonist, while leafing through his book on art history, tells the moment he met with the reproduction of Guido Reni’s Saint Sebastian when he was still young (Mishima, 2015, pp.40-46). He was struck with admiration for the painting. He was so overwhelmed that he lost his head: beauty, love, passion, that is to say contemplation, ecstasy, ejaculation! Mishima describes the painting with an ekphrastic approach for pages, gives historic information on the life and certification of Saint Sebastian, and adds even a poetic text that he wrote for the Saint. Saint Sebastian’s existence has become a vision filter materially and spiritually while observing the world. So much so that the fact that Mishima posed as Saint Sebastian in Barakei is not a coincidence or a surprise. Mishima’s passionate interest for Renaissance paintings also appears as formalist quotes throughout the other photographs in Barakei: clear references to paintings, foreshortening compositions, mannerist arrangements... As for Barakei #19, in this photograph, Sandro Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus (c.1486) and Mishima’s close-up eye formed a surimpression view. Left became right and vice versa in Botticelli’s painting by mirror effect: Zephyrus the West Wind stands at the top-right corner, which by the way he actually stands at the top-left corner of the actual painting with his lover Chloris and blows the wind to Venus’ boat which is a seashell. Horae passed over to left, which she represents the Spring and holds the wrapping for Venus coming out from the sea by standing at the right side of the painting. The gesture that Venus made when she struggles to cover herself with her hair and the sparkle of Mishima’s eye formed a surimpression view. This Venus Pudica has an exclusive place in the history of art. One of the most important reasons of this, as Hagen & Hagen indicates, is the fact that “Venus, a life-sized human figure, steps a shore from her Shell; the female nude, banned for 1000 years, has returned to its rightful place in art” thanks to Botticelli” (Hagen&Hagen, 2003 p.92). As for Barakei #32; this photograph is a close-up portrait of Mishima. He looks at us. He looks at us persistently, like he dares us. He and us! He is the everlasting representative of a brilliant existentialist performance because of his life, works and suicide. His gracious and passionate personality, our admiration for his narcissist handsomeness and courage, our heartbreak due to his premature death, our intellectual obsession named Mishima reveal such a vanity: He and us! With Barthes’ words, this kind of approach is “a noesis without noema, an act of thought without 69

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thinking, taking aim without having a target” (Barthes 1992, p.116), regardless its psychological qualification. At this point, Barthes gives as an example André Kertész’s photo dated 1928 about a little boy carrying a puppy: “In fact, he is looking at nothing; he retains within himself his love and his fear: that is the Look” (Barthes, 1992, p.118). In this way, our impossible love with Mishima continues. However, Mishima the great seducer keeps seducing each one of us who is looking at the photograph. His look is firm and serious but, at the same time, he pretends to smell delicate, curly leaves of a rose – the flower of Venus, the symbol of love - and touches the rose with his lips. What kind of a sensuality performance is this? His look and the rose become two indicators of a romantic paradox. On the other hand, if the object of this look is uncertain, if he conceptualizes the desire and we unavoidably degrade it to a single-sided illusion, and if we try to analyze and make it appropriate, then we are wrong! Because only Mishima exists in Mishima’s look! As in the relationship between the analysand and the analyst in Lacan’s objet petit a theory: “The discovery of the analyst is understandable only at the other level, the level at which we have situated the relation of alienation. This paradoxical, unique, specified object we call the objet a.” (Lacan, 2004, p.268). In that case, the analysand rules over the analyst. As Lacan states, let’s repeat the calling of analysand and imagine that we are hearing this from Mishima: “I love you, but, because inexplicably I love in you something more than –the objet petit a –I mutilate you!” (Lacan, 2004, p.268). In Taido, Mishima writes of the “poetry” of the male physique, and sees in bodybuilding a new “way” to replace the lost ethic, the vanished samurai code. This body is also revealed as one ideally Greek, explaining the otherwise paradoxical preserise of rhetoric Greek figures in Mishima’s Japanese landspaces. (Boardman, 1970, p.103). Hagiwara said: “I consider Mishima as the autogenetic matrix of his works. Mishima from his earliest days was heir to two diametrically different world views: one was Apollonian and rational, the other, Dionysian and emotional, Mishima associates the Apollonian principle with masculinity and the Dionysian with femininity.” (Hagiwara, 1999, p.40). A woman and a man, Venus/Love and Beauty and Mishima/Ares have met on this surimpression plane. Hyperanthropos (Cybulska, 2015, p.1) of Hosoe and Botticelli’s Goddess reflect on each other. This is the construction of a seduction ontology, the existentialist personification design made by Mishima with an uncompromising perfectionism has found its equivalent on this famous painting which is a sublime representation of Renaissance. In the aforementioned photograph, Mishima is only composed of his own eye. On the other hand, Botticelli’s painting should be a work of art that he 70

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spectates fondly, as might be expected from this visual combination. Referring to Lacan again, when he answers the question of ‘What is a Picture?’ he makes this determination: “The objet a in the field at the visible is the gaze” …In the scopic field, the gaze is outside, I am a Picture… What determines me, at the most profound level, in the visible, is the gaze is the instrument through which light embodied and through which –if you will allow me to use a word, as I often do, in a fragmented form –I am photo-graphed”(Lacan, 2004, pp.105-106). How awesome and entertaining are Lacan’s words for this photographer (!) –As if Lacan’s formula is visualized in Hosoe’s photographs. Following the same path: When we look at the photograph considering various subjective reasons such as Hosoe’s sytle, Mishima’s poetica, our interest for Japanese culture etc., the image determines us and becomes the representer. But this is both the content of the photograph and the mechanism of our aesthetic experience. In this context, if gaze=objet petit a then what does exist behind the image? Answer: Absolute beauty!

QUESTIONS WITHOUT ANSWERS Master photographer Duane Michals has had an aesthetic rhetoric full of queer aspects loaded with irony and grace that have gradually become transparent in the course of his carrier. He also had an allegorical and (Weinberg, 1996, p.2) ironic, as usual, photograph series named Things Are Queer (1973). In this series (2001), although there is not any queer expression or content directly, there is a miniature bathroom environment presented like a surrealist dream. Jonathan Weinberg says regarding this matter: “Duane Michals’ remarkable series of photographs, things are queer, not only because the world cannot be known and all representations are fallible, but because of the transforming process of art itself. In Michals’ beautiful photographs, queerness becomes an ideal; the circularity of the series suggests that the image is inexhaustible and unknowable. But in the end, art’s pleasures, its humor and mystery, do help us know the World in all its queerness becomes an ideal…” (Weinberg, 1996, p.2) This platonic humor is very clear in his project, Questions Without Answers. Beautiful young men with naked bodies, as they were a Phidias’ masterpiece, happen to be a personification of question without answer and an allegory of the world of ideas is created throughout the photograph. For example, we see What is the universe?, What is the time? What is the irony? titled photos; and again, the notion of questions without answer exists in the project each and every time with a photographic representation as well as inscribed on

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passe-partout. In the work named “ What is the universe?”, there is a young man who holds naive models made of paper symbolizing the star in one hand, and the sun or the world in his other hand. In “What is the time”, another young man leans an alarm clock to his ear. In “What is humor?”, another young man holds a feather-quill towards his armpit. In a classical formalism, we enter into the humorous world of Michals through these naive objects and childish gestures. In other words: The question is there, the answer is numerous, and we are condemned to this and can never reach to reality. This platonic impossibility is the “objet petit a” of Duane Michals! At this point, Platon’s Republic, X. Book (596 a-598 d) is waiting for us again! Duane Michals rejects the authority of History of Photography in Real Dreams (1976), the manifesto he wrote by having Nietzschean feelings. By saying “There are no answers anymore”, he suggests to abandon some figures - Edward Weston, Diane Arbus, Robert Frank, Ansel Adams, Clarence White - who have ensured the evolution of Photographic Language Ability Adding this: “I am my own hero” It is important to stay vulnerable. To permit pain, to make mistakes, not to be intimidated by touching...(Michals, 2015, p.1).

PERSONA Poetica of the photographer Mehmet Turgut is composed of two main narcissism category: 1. Advertising works he made with people of today’s art, music and culture world; 2. His artistic performance based on photographic self-portrait works. He wants to transform musicians, actors, artists, performers into “the object of desire” in first category and also he wants himself to become “the object of desire” in the second category. He takes up to build an eternal identity from one persona to another one’s; As related to our context, James Hall cites Stephen Greenblatt’s term ‘Self –fashioning’ to determine Cindy Sherman’s creative strategies as an impersonator. (Hall, 2014, p.270). “This term was an elaborate attempt to export post-Nietzschean masking culture for back into history” (Hall, 2014, p.271). Mehmet Turgut is a perfect example of self-fashioning. He is a photographer as well as a handsome actor, a performer with sexual attraction. He portrays himself like many different figures such as a prophet from doomsday, a puritan countryman, a photographer zombie, a Freddie Mercury variation – more female with his virile features / more virile with his female features – in the isolated environment of the studio with an anachronic gusto and independence. 72

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According to Wai Kit Lam: “Photographic self-portrait accomplishes us as seeing and as being seen; as photographing and as being photographed; as desiring and as being desired” (Wai Kit Lam, 2004, p.1). Knowing the fact that the same person is both in the front of and behind the camera, this feeling of total control is exciting; this almost reminds of that famous Foucault / Velasquez combination of the gaze. However, self-portraits here are different in terms of composition and they focus on sitter. We watch Mehmet Turgut throughout his self-portraits. We watch ourselves in his soft gazes. We watch each other. Together, we watch what is left of pains of love, heartbreaks, disappointments, simulative befoolings, fear, rage and sorrow… While watching, we transform or wish to transform into an instrument of watching. Just then, objet petit a or alfa and omega!

REFERENCES Adorno, T. W. (1996). Aesthetic Theory (R. Hullot-Kentor, Trans.). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Barthes, R. (1991). Mythologies (A. Lavers, Trans.). New York: Noonday Press. Barthes, R. (1992). Camera Lucida Fotoğraf Üzerine Düşünceler (R. Akçakaya, Trans.). İstanbul: Altıkırkbeş. Bataille, G. (2001). Gözün Hikâyesi, Önsözler: Susan Sontag & Roland Barthes (N. B. Serveryan & A. Gürsoy, Trans.). İstanbul: Littera. Baudelaire, C. (1998). The Modern Public and Photography. In C. Harrison & P.Wood with J. Gaiger (Eds), Art in Theory 1815-1900, (pp. 666-786). Blackwell. Benjamin, W. (2010). A Short History Of Photography. Retrieved February 25, 2016, from http://monoskop.org/images/7/79/Benjamin_Walter_1931_1972_A_ Short_History_of_Photography.pdf Blessing, J. (1997). The Art (ifice) of Striptease: Gypsy Rose Lee and the Masquerade of Nudity. In L. Rado (Ed.), Modernism, Gender and Culture: A Cultural Studies Approach (pp. 47–64). New York: Gerard Publishing. Boardman, G. R. (1970). Greek Hero and Japanese Samurai, Mishima’s New Aesthetic. Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, 12(1). Retrieved June 4,2015 from www.tandfonline.com/..../pdf/.../00111619.197 Borderie, R. (Producer), & Melville, J. P. (Director). (1967). Le Samouraï [Motion Picture]. France: Allocine Group. 73

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Carolin, R. (Producer), &Soderbergh, S. (Director). (2012). Magic Mike. [Motion Picture]. United States: Nich Wechsler Productions. Cybulska, E. (2015) Nietzsche’s Übermensch: A Glance behind the Mask of Hardness. Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology, 15(1), 1-13. Retrieved October 2, 2015 from www.tandfonline.com/.../20797222.2015.1049 De Laclos, C. (1991). Tehlikeli Alâkalar (N. Ataç, Trans.). İstanbul: M.E.B. Delon, A. (1967). Le Samuraï. Retrieved February 25, 2016 from https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=VVi8dnJ-MJA Didi-Huberman, G. (2003). Artistic Survival Panofsky vs. Warburg and the Exorcism of Impure Time. Common Knowledge, 9(2), 273-285. Retrieved February 25, 2016 from https://muse.jhu.edu/journals/common_knowledge(v009/9.2didi_huberman.html Eflâtun (Plato). (1980). Devlet (S. Eyüboğlu & M. A. Cimcoz, Trans.). İstanbul: Remzi. Eliade, M. (1994). Ebedi Dönüş Mitosu (Ü. Altuğ, Trans.). Ankara: İmge. Gide, A. (1962). Seçme Yazılar (S. K. Yetkin, Trans.). Ankara: M.E.B. Gordon, H. (2013). Dictionary of Existantialism. New York: Routledge. Griffin, M. (2015). Transforming Tales: Rewriting Metamorphosis in Medieval French Literature. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:o so/9780199686988.001.0001 Hagen, R., & Hagen, R. M. (2003). What Great Paintings Say. Köln: Taschen. Hagiwara, T. (1999). The Metaphsics of the Womb in Mishima Yukio’s The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea. The Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese, 33(2). Retrieved June 4, 2015 from http://www.jstor.org/stable/489607 Hall, J. (2014). The Self-Portrait. London: Thomas & Hudson. Hignet, G. (1976). The Classical Tradition: Greek and Roman Influences on Western Literature. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. Hill, G. (Producer) & Wachowski A., Wachowski L. (Directors). (2015). Jupiter Ascending. [Motion Picture]. United States: Village Roadshow Pictures. Holborn, M. (1999). Eikoh Hosoe. New York: Könemann.

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Honkaren, K. (2007). Aion, Kronos and Kairos: On Judith Butler’s Temporality. Journal of Queer Studies in Finland. Retrieved February 25, 2016 from http://www. mujinga.net/butler.pdf Huggo. (2012). Striptiz Kulübü (Plot Summary). Retrieved 25 February, 2016 from. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1915581/plotsummary?ref_=tt_stry_pl) Keizer, H. M. (2010). Life Time Entirety. A Study of AiΏN In Greek Literature and Philosophy, the Septuagift and Philo. Retrieved February, 25, 2016 from https:// books.google.co.uk/.../Life_Time_Entir Lacan, J. (1977). The Four Fundamental Concepts Of Psycho-Analysis (A. Sheridan, Trans.). London: Karnac. Michals, D. (2015, June 10). Real Dreams. Retrieved from artblart.com/.../exhibitionstoryteller-the-photo Mişima, Y. (2015). Bir Maskenin İtirafları. (Z. Selimoğlu, Trans.). İstanbul: Can. Murray, A. S. (1954). Manual of Mythology. New York: Tudor. Nietzsche, F. (1927). The Philosophy Of Nietzsche/ Thus Spake Zarathustra (T. Common, Trans.). New York: The Modern Library. Roland, B. (2005). Myth Today. In J. Evans & S. Hall (Eds.),Visual Culture: The Reader (pp. 51-58). London: Sage. Sartre, J.-P. (1960). Varoluşçuluk/Existentialism (A. Bezirci, Trans.). İstanbul: Ataç. Vanderwees, C. (2014). Complicating Eroticism and the Male Gaze: Feminism and Georges Bataille’s Story of the Eye. Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature, 38(1). doi:10.4148/2334-4415.1001 Wai, K. L. (2004). The Other. Retrieved October 2, 2015 from www.waikitlam. com/2004/2004_other/2004_o Weinberg, J. (1996). Things Are Queer. Retrieved October 6, 2015 from http://www. queerculturalcenter.org/Pages/Weingberg.html Yourcenar, M. (2011). Mişima ya da Boşluk Algısı. (H. Bayrı, Trans.). İstanbul: Can. Zaccaria Ruggiù, A. (1998). Appendice: Aion Chronos Kairos. L’immagine del tempo nel mondo greco e romano. In L. Ruggiù (Ed.), Filosofia del Tempo. Milano: Bruno Mondadori.

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Section 2

Seduction Imagined in Popular Culture

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Chapter 4

Everybody’s Got a Hungry Heart:

Kierkegaard and Hitchcock Constantino Pereira Martins Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal

ABSTRACT The text is a reflection on seduction in its primordial meaning: men and women. We support our analysis in the confrontation of Kierkegaard concepts and the film Vertigo. In this sense, more than seduction itself, it’s the notion of figure or conceptual character that is focused. The figural assumes here a mode and a process of reading a particular way of the aesthetic, i.e., a form of life that corresponds to the seducer. What is a seducer? Are there different types of seducers? We will present the formal basic premises of Kierkegaard and try to show how Hitchcock’s movie mirrors it, amplifying the categories in use to the unveil a new sort of seducer.

1. INTRODUCTION: LUST TO LOVE This article aims to build a philosophical and cinematic interpretation platform regarding desire and seduction. Addressing the thought of Kierkegaard, and in particular through his work Either/Or, the proposal pursues readings and film correspondences, assessing how the philosophy of Kierkegaard can clarify the issue of seduction, in an attempt to show different configurations. With different images, concepts and problems, we will try to display cinematic double by relation DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-0525-9.ch004 Copyright ©2017, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

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to Hitchcock’s Vertigo. The film is embedded in a sort of melancholy and sorrow that Kierkegaard also identifies and thematizes as main pieces for the puzzle of the aesthetic dizziness. Some passages can explicitly encapsulate different tones of the movement of seduction. Tonality, between melody and moods, passion and sorrow, the seduction in its different forms mirrors the Kierkegaardian process of thinking in images. There is a vital paradox in Hitchcock’s Vertigo, beyond boredom, between immediacy and reflexive sorrow. Here we will undertake the task of showing parallel and overlap layers of interpretation from text to image, reminding that this work of Kierkegaard points out not only a reflection about seduction, but also about forms of art and general aesthetics, which will authorize us to display Kierkegaard’s premonition on the cinematic form. If we address three apparently different things, the immediate question is: what does Kierkegaard have to do with Vertigo? Trying to establish parallel lines, the main and common topic will be seduction, progressing from a general perspective to a more particular comprehension that will end inside Hitchcock’s film. Starting with some preliminary notes on seduction (from the seducer’s point of view), we could present the following general guide lines regarding seduction as a form of desire (love, passion), that could be identified as a specific form that corresponds to: 1. An Active Desire: With a set of determinations that involves: a. Possession; b. Game, play (meaning both game and theatrical performance; performativity); c. Hunt (fight, combat, conquer; this means and explains the lack of interest after the conquest has been made) or the eternal search of the new (Kierkegaard, 1987, pp. 24); 2. The Most Important Here to Focus: Hunger. This hunger is also a specific hunger: its insatiable, voracious. It seeks the impossible: The Woman in the women. This interpretation could have three possible main meanings: 1. The woman as passion: a platonic eidetic hunger (burning passion misplaced seeking the woman in the women); 2. The woman as redemption: a quiet passion, a freudian hunger, regressive towards the mother; 3. The women as hunting games (hunger games): Freudian projection (relates also to1).

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This consequently implies a relation between desire, hunger and void, or hunger and emptiness. And this means that seduction relies ultimately in solitude. It starts and ends in it. From this main axis, we can now derive two natural conclusions: that emptiness has a sad form, it belongs to sorrow, and secondly, that it’s this sorrow that leads to reflexivity (establishing the parallel between the immediate and reflexive seduction and the immediate and reflexive sorrow). In brief and synthetically, my main thesis is that the seducer is the loneliest person in the world. This loneliness and sorrow, this emptiness could be either an acute sensation (cold, related to anxiety) or a diffuse sensation, a void full of loneliness, closer to despair (that paradoxically transform itself in to a solid sensation, like a prison). The desire, the seek of pleasure by the seducer is the form of the seducer. The form to resolve the loneliness. A fatal dialectic of conquest and abandonment. A snowslip of himself and others. The rise and fall of the seducer, the seducer’s sorrow means a logic movement, a circularity. The excitement of the hunt is only alive as long as the possibilities are open (succeeding and failing). Once the goal has been achieved the rush is off. Because what really means the open possibilities is that we don’t know for sure, absolutely, how the game is going to end. And that is the rush, also in gambling addiction, or addictions in general. This absolute open. The risk and the rush bet against each other and are proportional in the pleasure that is offered (hype). This hunger seeks to surpass through love, through passion, the unsurpassable loneliness. The immediate satisfaction is but a drop in this large ocean. This solitude, its the cause and effect at the same time, and many times could be interpreted as a sort of nakedness, and love as a one trying to dress with clothes that are never enough. In fact, it would be more accurate to define it as shame. Shame is the core factor disguised with the seducer’s mask. Addiction with no intimacy. In the figure of the seducer, and its actions, are the trompe-l’oeil, the mask of this radical shame. Beyond the commedia dell’arte mask, the carnival of life animated by this disguised shame. Solitude is also born from the need of recognition of the self by others. Seduction is a form of inter-subjectivity that is all about selfishness. Real enjoyment consists not in what one enjoys but in the idea. If I had in my service a submissive jinni who, when I asked for a glass of water, would bring me the world’s most expensive wines, deliciously blended, in a goblet, I would dismiss him until he learned that the enjoyment consists not in what I enjoy but in getting my own way. (Kierkegaard, 1987, pp. 31) Seduction is the art of faking to love another. In theater it would be the puppeteer, as one can clearly see in Repetition. The seducer sets the trap. He is in control of the game (close to the practical psychology in behaviorist experiments), he makes the rules, he is the master of the game and already knows how and when it begins 79

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and where it will end. That love that consists in this: that two solitudes protect and border and greet each other. It could also means two solitudes projecting each other. In this projection lies the radical foundation of the seducer. The seducer is in love with himself, and his selfishness has a mythological root: Narcissus. In his pride, the hunter doesn’t see but the surface of the problem. He is enchanted with his power. Blind in his strength, he will die with hunger. Quite ironic for a hunter. This ancient reminder brings us to the first seducer’s paradox: pain and pleasure. Most people rush after pleasure so fast that they rush right past it. They are like that dwarf who guarded a kidnapped princess in his castle. One day he took a noon nap. When he woke up an hour later, she was gone. Hastily he pulls on his seven-league boots; with one step he is far past her. (Kierkegaard, 1987, pp. 29) The result of this paradox is the dubious quality of the seducer’s search for pleasure. The drive is that strange attraction, or need-impulse, that brings Thanatos and Eros together. In seduction the principle of pleasure is in action, but this motion has a more deeper movement: this unsuspected movement is pain, sorrow. This lack, this need, is desire working in the negative space of pleasure. This work means search, the pleasure seeks something. The fulfillment that lies ultimately in pain. Struggling with solitude. Hunger and Vanitas. The seducer’s movement of sorrow – unhappy circularity. The more experienced the seducer is with his multiplicity of experiences, the more consciousness he becomes of his acute state of insatiable hunger that is infinite. Vanitas becomes the consequence of this vampire (Kierkegaard, 2013, pp. 242), this walking dead. Wine no longer cheers my heart; a little of it makes me sad- much depressed. My soul is dull and slack; in vain do I jab the spur of desire into its side; it is exhausted, it can no longer raise itself up in its royal jump. I have lost all my illusions. In vain do I seek to abandon myself in joy’s infinitude; it cannot lift me, or, rather, I cannot lift myself. Previously, when it merely beckoned, I mounted, light, hearty, and cheerful. When I rode slowly through the forest, it seemed as if I were flying. Now, when the horse is covered with lather and is almost ready to drop, it seems to me that I do not move from the spot.I am alone, as I have always been-forsaken not by men, that would not pain me, but by the happy jinn of joy, who trooped around me in great numbers, who met acquaintances everywhere, showed me an opportunity everywhere.Just as an intoxicated man collects a wanton throng of young people around him, so they flocked about me, the elves of joy, and my smile was meant for them. My soul has lost possibility. If I were to wish for something,I would wish not for wealth or power but for the passion of possibility, for the eye, eternally young, 80

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eternally ardent, that sees possibility everywhere. Pleasure disappoints; possibility does not. And what wine is so sparkling, so fragrant, so intoxicating! (Kierkegaard, 1987, pp. 41) The installation of boredom and sorrow. He wanders between himself and through the others. That’s the seducer’s vertigo: oneself, alone, in the mirror. The second paradox of the seducer lies in the growing complexity of the relation hunter-prey, aggressor-victim, in brief, in the line that connects the eyes. To seduce and to be seduced. This implies a reversibility and extension. The seduced also seduces the seducer. Maybe it’s just a dangerous invitation. Or, as we commonly say, a flirt. But that doesn’t cancel the principle of inversion. And this could also mean the inversion of the feminine-masculine perspective. The main point here is to install the triangle: seduction, obsession and repetition. We have now covered the main conceptual features of the problem, or figure, we must now try to understand the different types of seducer.

2. SEDUCTION AND SORROW Is there a seducer or different types of seducers? In order to understand what is involved in the game of seduction, we must first try to grasp different typologies and figures (Kierkegaard, 2013, pp. 135-136) of the seducer: silhouettes of different configurations and general determinations, from immediacy to reflection and ultimately through a logic of effects. Kierkegaard places seduction in a central position in his reflection on the aesthetic sphere of existence (mainly in Either/Or). We will try to map these different modalities in three forms of access: 1. D. Juan - Immediacy/Immediate: The first access is regarding seduction as act through the spontaneous and the passionate. It’s the world of the direct not the reflect, the space of the lips and not to meditate. This means enjoyment, erotic pleasure and erotic impulse, voluptuousness triggered by the fire of passion. Going with the flow, taking pleasure in this rapture of the moment which coincides with ecstasy, and music as the ultimate example of this abandonment to the immediate. Synchronicity. The practice of the multiplicity as a “superior art” that implies crop rotation, the cultivation of the interesting. Seeking always more to escape his own condition, the seducer as a prisoner of himself can’t get no satisfaction. The cultivation of the interesting, the ultimate superficiality, an exercise close to Surf. Enjoying the power of the wave, savoring it: the wind on the face forcing your eyes to close, the sound of the sea, the smell of the ocean. And 81

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then catching another wave (Kierkegaard, 2013, pp. 129, 359). The realm of the flesh and the fresh. Savoring the moment relies in a fast method, a poetic act witch music (Kierkegaard, 2013, pp. 138) and dance testify. What would become of all the modern parties and alcohol without the strength of music? The radicality (Kierkegaard, 2013, pp. 131) of Don Juan relies in lust and voluptuousness. His love is not psychic. Actually, the immediate seducer does not seduce (1), he has a burning desire (Kierkegaard, 2013, pp. 135). And if he seduces, its with the energy of this sensual desire. He has a seductive glow. He wants in each woman the whole femininity (Kierkegaard, 2013, pp. 136). The immediate seducer is an absolute winner. 2. Johannes - Reflection/Reflexive: The second access is taking seduction as a task (strategy). The emotional turmoil results from the pleasure of distance, contemplative in a sense. The eye and the mind games support an old relation between to see and to think, that goes beyond a simple reflection regarding the image. With the same importance, I suppose, as for anthropologist the relation between the eye and the hand. The eye plays here the major role. The voyeur as ultimate seducer: Orson Welles, F for FAKE. If we should amplify this thesis to a more complex ground, we could find a certain refinement in this statement witch connects seduction, perversion and debauchery: the problem of the fetish. Hypothesis aside, the reflexive type means the need of distance. There can be no intimacy in seduction (proximity spoils it), and the distance of the observation, the glance, translates looking as possession. The pleasure of the hunt and conquest comes mostly from observing the prey. It begins by exchanging glances. Strangers in the night. Wondering. But also tasting. The poetic delight in the construction of the game, of the trap. With the natural advances and retreats. But above all, the challenge. It has to be challenging. It has to be a certain hope for the seducer’s sorrow, for the emptiness. It has to mean the possibility of breaking out of the prison of boredom. This mean concentration and focus. This means effort, unity, focused in one at the time. Intensive method. The work of seduction is also an inner task, towards oneself and to the construction of the prey. This effort works with distance and within distance – the pleasure of longing, and absence, and the interlude that makes possible to think of one another, savoring time. And also the pain of distance, of impossibility, or to be more precise, the multiple possibilities (alea jacta est). Its a slow method (Kierkegaard, 2013, pp. 385, 464), building something takes time. Its a more subtle game, imperceptible sometimes, only to the lovers in their microscopic connections. Like chess, this poetic work, crafts the sensation into its relation to art. This art of sensuality builds a body, not already flesh, to the mind. Its an abstract and spiritual relationship, that is 82

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in a process of shape (Kierkegaard, 2013, pp. 420). Love has many positions (Kierkegaard, 2013, pp. 442) and Passion devotes to building and creating (Kierkegaard, 2013, pp. 245) a heart. 3. Half-Time - Digest and Confront: If these two main forms portrait two distinct movements, intensive and extensive, could we even try to build a bridge between them? If there is an abyss of difference from psychic to sensual love (Kierkegaard, 2013, pp. 132), from the abstraction of the reflection to the concreteness of immediacy, how could we connect the rapture of the moment to the mediation of the artwork? As a general hypothesis we could consider the possibility of solution towards: a. a matter of evolution, result of repetition and boredom? Perhaps all reflective seducers have been immediate in the past? b. These two forms correspond to the relation between consciousness or unconsciousness? (even if we know that the true seducer is the reflexive type): i. Confronting the consciousness with the movement of seduction (rise and fall) where does awareness (Kierkegaard, 2013, pp. 135) appear in both cases? In the immediate is the feeling of emptiness or diffuse anxiety, that progressively works through repetition? And in the reflective position, already conscious, is it a global awareness of the mechanics of rise and fall that occurs in the end by the sense of prison of boredom? 4. Logic of Effects and Types of Sorrow (Silhouettes): Finally, a third access, according to the logic of causes and effects, in relation to the seducer and the seduced. Meaning another form of approach, through the silhouettes and nuances of the seduction and sorrow. To better understand better the range of problems in the seducer we must confront the problem of reversibility, that is related to what we previously identified as the second paradox. Looking again at he relationship between the categories of immediacy and reflection and sorrow and seduction, implies that they mirror each other. There are also different types of sorrow, reflexive and immediate (Kierkegaard, 2013, pp. 229). Kierkegaard’s performative philosophy is in a game of and with conceptual characters. The seduced is also part of the game, like pain is also part of pleasure. The seduced also have dilemmas. He loves me, loves me not, as in defoliate marigold-chant. Only the seduced woman knows the happiness of being seduced. She has to surrender at some point. The seducer knows that what he says and what he knows he learned from the woman. Its part of a process of learning, like a psychological hobby. Slowly, seducer and seduced, build the the mechanism of passion, seduction/tedium and sorrow. Pain and 83

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joy. And, of course, the modes of expression. “Its proper to joy to express itself and sorrow to hide”(Kierkegaard, 2013, pp. 207). And, considering the principle of reversibility in the conceptual characters, its necessary to revisit the brides of sorrow (whose maximum cinematic splendor would correspond to Johnny Guitar, Nicholas Ray, 1954).

3. BRIDES OF SORROW: VERTIGO If there are so many beautiful films and characters that portrait seduction like Dangerous Liaisons, Magnolia, Shame, why Vertigo then? Because it has all the elements, the silhouettes and contours that allow us to wander through the concepts of seduction, sorrow, immediacy and reflection. It also exhibits the movement that we are trying to grasp: the rise and downfall, the circularity and ride of excitement that is involved in the seductive process. It also marvelously shows the difference that goes from the immediate to the superficial: it isn’t superficial or shallow, it has complex mechanisms involved. And is that complexity that interest me. But not with the psychoanalytical premisses. That line won’t be followed, although those interpretation layers (regarding the crucial affective tonalities of the music and the color in the film) are there. I also won’t discuss here the problem of film and philosophy regarding the problem of illustration. But it surely is interesting to note that Kierkegaard himself had an intuition on cinema. Besides discussing other forms of art, it is indicated a premonitory form of encapsulating emotions or affections in a succession of images (Kierkegaard, 2013, pp. 217, 93) (both in sorrow and sensuality). So, what matters here is the possibility of finding the conceptual characters and the scale of dispositions, the same intuition both in Hitchcock and Kierkegaard. So, if seduction lies ultimately in sorrow and in loneliness, in the in-explicit (could also be explicit) sorrow or melancholy, that as a direct correlation with boredom and repetition. And Vertigo is full of repetitions. Repetitions of falls, chasing, regression, projection and death. Luckily, the Kierkegaardian seductive premisses find a happy coincidence with the film title. In this sense, vertigo relates to anxiety – the dizziness - a diffuse spiral and vortex that confronts oneself with mortality and the freedom of choice. That sort of dizziness is also identified by Nietzsche when he states that “when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you”. This sort of existentialist flavor also punctuates Hitchcock’s movie, where despair and the dread of death appears in different forms, with particularly strength in the scene by the sea where she surrenders to Scottie (love as a salvation form death) 84

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and in the sequoia park sequence. The notion of vertigo, death and fear implies a distortion of the perception that involves the figure of fall. Fall of Scottie, fall of Judy and even fake falls. But mainly, we are talking here about falling in love. To Fall in and out of love. There is a seduction and fascination in the vertigo process. And vice versa. In the English language it could be said “under your spell” to point out this sort of fascination. The beauty spell, the love spell. In the movie love is an essential premiss. Not in the sense of a police crime thriller noir genre, but in the existential sense, towards deceive and trap. Love as vertigo, abyss and a dangerous place. The danger of beauty. Like we’ve said before the film is full of double, and without going any deeper in all its extension, we must consider the notion of vertigo as one of the main axis. There is a pendulum movement in the film regarding vertigo (Inner vertigo and Peripheral vertigo). If we divide vertigo in its exterior and internal form regarding Scottie and Madeleine/Judy we could consider the following system of interpretation: 1. In the first part of the film he is possessed by an external vertigo while she is in an internal vertigo; 2. In the second part he is in an internal vertigo movement while she is in an external one. But one of the most beautiful things about Vertigo is precisely that it exhibits the perilous and risky nature of seduction. That is the real vertigo. That seduction is a dangerous game, it can be deadly. Like any other game it involves bets and a certain price to pay. What is at stake? The love triangle of seduction, passion and sorrow. This means that in the movie we will look into the triangle Scottie, Madeleine and Midge.

3.1 Pendularity and Ambivalence In light of the Kierkegaardian categories, the main structural axis of the film regarding seduction is between the immediate and reflexive tone, and shows a certain pendularity and ambivalence. As we have see before, to different sorts of seducers correspond different sorts of seduction. First of all, lets start by excluding the master puppeteer. Scottie’s friend who is really the master mind of the whole plot. So, lets exclude for now friendship and seduction. In this sense, lets exclude also, or lets pretend that the plot isn’t mainly a suspense detective story, which in fact it isn’t. We are trying to find the seduction-passion link, and we could structure the film in two parts:

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1. A first part regarding the immediate seduction; and 2. A second part regarding a reflexive seduction. This artificial division doesn’t involve a static imposing categorical interpretation, and we must reserve the different lines of sorrow, obsession and others, to another occasion of debate. However, we must emphasize the reversibility of seduction according to the pendularity principle. This also means reversibility of the masculine and the feminine element (feminine reversibility: la femme fatal, temptress, etc). Like in a dance (music). These two parts, these two movements of the film belong to a dance of death. Like in tango seductive movements. A game of power and seduction. He wants to possess her. But she is possessed by the past, ghosts and death. Its a vital dance between Eros and Thanatos. The complexity of this involves analysis that we simply can’t indicate here because of the multiple subtlety of different parts of the movie. In general, as we saw, the two parts correspond to two different seductive forms. The first part where Madeleine plays a mix of femme fatale that takes Scottie immediately by the collar. Its a reverse complexity since the usual procedure of the seducer is represented by Sottie’s pursue of the pray, when in fact he is the one being hunted down. Its a twisted form, where she places the trap, but paradoxically reveals the vertigo of death in her relation to the past, to the obsessions, to the wandering, that generally is more of accordance with the reflexive seducer. In fact, although the first part of the film is an immediate seduction, she is partly a reflexive seducer. A fake reflexive seducer. In this void spiral of repetitions inside repetitions, we know later that all of this is played out according to a previous plan. But interestingly enough, there is a micro signal that something is wrong: the seducer (Madeleine) surrenders to Scotty by the sea: she says, in abandonment, “I don’t want to die”. This scene serves the purpose of showing a sort of hibridity that I want to briefly point out here, and that will be more clear when we address the Midge role on seduction. For now lets quickly review the second part that we could call the reflexive seducer’s part. Keeping in mind the interpretive reservations, the legitimation for consider a second part reflexive is because: a) taking Scotty as the central figure, and b) because it relates to the reflexive as a constructive action. The reflexive seducer is one of time, of slow construction. In the movie he re-builds Madeleine in Judy. In his wandering (he looks for the woman in all the women as we have seen before) and obsession for the past, he selects the pray and then starts working on her. His particular attention to detail, from the clothes to the hair, shows the construction process in perfection, until the final surrender. Judy says: “If I do want you want will you love me?“ In her passion and despair, she doesn’t care for her anymore. Scotty is now the perfect reflexive seducer: a ghost projecting ghosts. Trying to regain desire, again, and again. Reflexively. Step by step. The complexity here not only involves the mixture of different figures of seduction but also sorrow, 86

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that we have seen as the main and unconditioned cause (primus motor). Simultaneously cause and effect. This dialectic of repetition and obsession, introduces the final question that I would like to point out: that one of the seducers present in the film is of of extreme subtleness: the hybrid role of Midge.

3.2 Hybrid Seducers There are different forms of love and desire in the movie with different silhouettes. That means different triangulations. Love, friendship and passion. We’ve excluded the friendship of Scottie with Elster because of its form of use, pragmatism and rhetoric. In consequence, the seduction triangle we seek is addressing love and passion. The reversibility of the seduction becomes more complex: not only the masculine/feminine dialectic, not only that the seduced also performs a particular reversibility in the form of consent (after the rescue in Scottie’s apartment), but also in the particular case of Midge where we can observe the mixture of seduction and sorrow, of reflexive and immediate. She is, in a certain sense, the ultimate paradox. Midge also reveals Scottie’s anxiety and vertigo: he has to choose a woman, but confronted with the vertigo of the freedom of choice, he knows that the possibility of choice isn’t just according to reason. The unhappy feeling about this scene is similar to those cases where we see that between two people they have everything to make it right, but for some obscure reason it just doesn’t work. The way Scottie deals with this is to put Midge in the friend’s zone, the friend’s box. Scotties is securing that range of action and feelings (the vertigo here would be towards the ethical sphere; the jump for the ethical), placing her in a position of a badly disguised friendship because her love is maternal, or even, like in the final scene, a nurse love. She is there for him unconditionally, although there aren’t any conditions of possibility. That is Midge vertigo. The despair of the non correspondence. The frustration of an unhappy love, that is in the obsession and repetition process of not understanding why it doesn’t work. The despair becomes absolute with the discover of the rival’s power. The tragic triangle is completed. The lover, the loved and the rival. The desiring drive of Midge finds a unsurpassable barrier: Scottie makes a choice. In the balance between what should be the right choice and the stranger that makes him alive, he chooses Madeleine. Midge is doomed with the conscience of the reflexive seducer but also of the reflexive sorrow. She is trapped in her own trap. There is no way out. In this is the mix character and the maximum hybridism of seduction and sorrow. Midge is a strange persona in the film. We know exactly how it begins but we don’t know how it ends – she disappears from the film – its a mystery. Did she give up? She is a strange combination that corresponds perfectly to Kierkegaard suggestion of silhouettes. Midge, the looser, the sorrow, is a puzzle. Or is she just a failed seducer? Or do we have to create more 87

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categories fore our analysis such as passive and active seducer? Perhaps sorrow or a unhappy love is just the mark of the seducer in the seduced, a sign of its effects. It seems like in Midge case its not just that simple. There are five scenes in the film where Midge performs her seduction and sorrow. Through out the reflexive sorrow and seduction are in place. The first two scenes (2) there is a quiet performance that is integrated in Scottie’s life in a friendship form, accepting the development of the events. It all seems to change in scene 3 (3), where there is the discover in vivo of the rival in possession of her supposed territory. In this scene she is already in action with the assumptions of the reflexive seducer regarding hunting and pursue. That is the end of the motherly figure, weak and dependent, on her patient waiting for Scottie’s love. In the fourth scene we witness a Midge reborn for her reflexive seduction. She slips notes under Scottie’s door and she presents herself as a direct competitor to her new rival. Unfortunately, the reflexive seducer in her immediate action is quickly replaced by her immediate desperation. But we must not forget that its her reflexive sorrow, disrupted by her rival existence, that pushes her seduction into play in its full declaration and transparency. In this scene we watch the impossible competition and Scottie’s choice. In fact he is Johnny. The painting displeases him because it transform an abstract and general mood in a concrete form that can no longer be manageable. Her reaction is of full despair. She destroys the painting that were supposed to show her in the place of Scottie’s object of desire and passion. The transference was impossible and didn’t succeed. She is now totally defeated. It would be understandable if this was the last scene, but it isn’t. The last appearance is in the hospital. She returns to the friend zone accepting her destiny. Fighting for the impossible and enduring her sorrow and defeat. She asks Johnny to try. She talks about different moods through music therapy, as if she was trying to say that there are different types of love and that she is there for him. Like Scottie was there for Madeleine when she surrendered to him. She is there for him even if he still loves another. The trapped and defeated seducer’s full confession. But nothing is going to help. Not even music for all pathological conditions. Not even Mozart. Midge walks the last scene in a lonely corridor, leaving Scottie’s melancholia and guilt complex behind, gazing at the floor and reflecting on her own sorrow.

REFERENCES Kierkegaard, S. (1987). Either/Or. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Kierkegaard, S. (2013). Either/Or. (R. D’Água, Ed.). Lisboa: OU-OU.

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ENDNOTES 1



2



3



This specific passage in Kierkegaard’s view is absolutely paradoxical. The seducer doesn’t seduce? It’s one of the most complex passages to interpret and comment. According to Professor Nuno Ferro the extreme modalities of the seducer can’t exist. In the case of the reflexive seducer, he is not interested in the specific woman but just in the form, in the seduction art he is playing. In the case of the immediate seducer he also doesn’t seduce because the immediate is abstract, the instance doesn’t exist. The immediate conquest as seduction is not possible because seduction is a strategic process, and this means the difference between conquest and seduction. There is no pure form either regarding immediate or reflexive seduction. They are figures of conscience. This paradoxical conclusion is in strict philosophical terms true. In defense of my argument of different types of seducer we would have to go back to the original myth of Narcissus. Since I’ve founded the seduction process towards loneliness, the mirror is a sort of symbolic labyrinth for this dead end. Narcissus is alone at his own image. Its a mix of immediate and reflexive seduction. Since I can’t establish exactly this hybrid space between the image in the mirror and the surface of the eyes, or the gaze, we could image this intermediate space as a sort of prison of the sight. All of the argument of impossibility makes sense in conceptual terms since the only thing that really matters to the seducer is the seducer himself. He is a loner, interested in his self, his appetite and performance. But, establishing different types of seducer allows us to think more clearly, to organize and recognize figures and characters that are related to the specific characteristics of each other. On the other hand, establishing these categories permits also to understand hybrid or more diffused seducers. In conclusion, Professor Nuno Ferro argument and interpretation is remarkable in every way, but in my view disregards one basic premiss: that seduction is a process and it involves an external object of desire (even if, in the end, it means just projection of the self). This anchorage of the seduction process permits us to establish, not in absolute terms, an approach to a relatively creative typology, that is not completely deviant from Kierkegaard’s text. 1) Studio: 4.47 – 10.48 / and 2) Studio 2- Bookstore-Bridge 31-36.26 . In scene 1 whe know that they used to be engaged Seeing the woman leaving Scottie’s house – 50.29

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Seduction and Mutually Assured Destruction: The Modern “Femme Fatale” in “Gone Girl” Ana Cabral Martins Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal

ABSTRACT In cinema, the most prevalent representation of the figure of the seductress has been the femme fatale or the “vamp”. This chapter will explore the femme fatale in various incarnations in American cinema throughout its history. This chapter will also overview several definitions of femme fatale, and its connection with sex, seduction and destruction, in cinema’s history, principally the American silent film’s “vamp”, personified by the actress Theda Bara; and the 1940s film noir’s femme fatale, personified by actresses such as Rita Hayworth and Barbara Stanwyck. In an attempt to trace a connection between different embodiments of the femme fatale in American cinema, this chapter will focus, in particular, on David Fincher’s cinematic adaptation of the pulp fiction novel Gone Girl (2012), by Gillian Flynn. Not only does Gone Girl (David Fincher, 2014) offer one of the most recent interpretations of the traditional film noir trope, it also provides a modern update of the femme fatale.

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-0525-9.ch005 Copyright ©2017, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

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INTRODUCTION In cinema, the most prevalent representation of the figure of the seductress has been the femme fatale or the “vamp”. The objective of this chapter is to examine David Fincher’s cinematic adaptation of the pulp fiction book Gone Girl (2012), by Gillian Flynn. Not only does Gone Girl (David Fincher, 2014) offer one of the most recent interpretations of the traditional film noir trope, it also provides a modern update of the femme fatale and its connection with sex, seduction and destruction, in contemporary cinema. This study will be delimited to American cinema, which has, specifically within the history of the film noir and the thriller genres, explored the figure of the seductress, of the femme fatale, throughout its history. Having said that, I focus my analysis on Theda Bara’s “vamp”; the film noir of the 1940s and the femme fatale as personified by Phyllis Dietrichson (Double Indemnity, 1946) and Rita Hayworth (The Lady from Shanghai, 1947), among others; and, finally, the modern femme fatale as symbolized by Gone Girl’s Amy Dune, the most recent iteration of the quintessential “deadly woman”. The idea behind this overview is tracing a connection, a through-line between the “first femme fatale” played by Theda Bara during the teen years of the twentieth century (Longworth, 2014), and its culmination in the modern and decidedly twenty-first century representation and reinterpretation of the femme fatale in Gone Girl.

REFLECTIONS ON THE CINEMATIC FEMME FATALE I would like to start this examination by exploring different definitions of the femme fatale figure, including readings that align it with either with misogynistic or feminist interpretations, to determine the place that the femme fatale has had in American cinema, and in film noir in particular. Generally speaking, the femme fatale is a “seductress” (a woman who seduces someone, usually one who entices a man into sexual activity), which can be a “temptress”, “enchantress”, “siren” or “vamp”, adding a deadly component to the formula. The femme fatale is the quintessential embodiment of lust and danger (or, at least, of the dangerous nature of lust). This expression denotes the employment of a woman’s sensuality, sexuality and intelligence to either further her own agenda or to advance her quest for power. In the introduction to Femme Fatale: Cinema’s Most Unforgettable Lethal Ladies (2009), Dominique Mainon1 describes the femme fatale as being a “quintessential part of our collective imagination” going back to the Judeo-Christian Bible, where Eve (the very first femme fatale?) lures Adam into committing a sin2. Dominique 91

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Mainon goes back to the etymology of the femme fatale moniker, which literally means “deadly woman”, a term that designates “the human embodiment of lust and peril, that intoxicating allure of sex and death”, a sensuous creature that differs from the “warrior woman”, or amazon, due to her elusiveness and to the employment of both her “intelligence and sexual prowess” instead of physical weapons (Mainon and Ursini, 2009, p. 8) — this designation also distinguishes the femme fatale from more action-oriented female characters. To Carl Gustav Jung in Man and His Symbols (1968), the concept of the femme fatale can be directly associated with his notion of the “anima” or the “woman within”. The anima is the female personification of the male unconscious or, better yet, the “personification of all feminine psychological tendencies in a man’s psyche” and his “relation to the unconscious” (Jung, 1968, p. 177). This manifestation of a man’s particular anima is usually ruled by his mother’s influence. A negative one would result in the expression of “depressed moods, uncertainty, insecurity” (Jung, 1968, p. 178). These woeful dispositions can, in Carl Jung’s stance, “lure a man to suicide, in which case the anima becomes a death demon” (note the semantic employment of the words “lure”, “death” and “demon”, which frequently describe a femme fatale’s archetype) (Jung, 1968, p. 178). This illustration of a bad relationship with a mother figure is curious given the dichotomy, present in the 1940s in American film and television, between “sacrificing mothers” of the woman’s film and the femme fatale representations of film noir (Zeisler, 2008, p. 28). Carl Jung proceeds to make an important connection between these dark aspects of the anima and its most frequent manifestation in “the form of erotic fantasy” (Jung, 1968, p. 179), binding together the concept of a dangerous female figure whose sexuality and relationship with men spells doom, which mirrors the essence of the negative anima. Carl Jung points out that this dark anima figure is called “a femme fatale” by the French, while the “Greek Siren” (another figure characterized by the dynamics between sex, seduction, beauty and death) is an equally appropriate manifestation of “this dangerous aspect of the anima” (Jung, 1968, p. 178). Furthermore, the femme fatale is an unequivocally central figure in nineteenth century literature and panting. According to May Ann Doane, if one ascribes to Christine Buci-Glucksmann’s notion that “modernity is ‘haunted by the feminine’”3, then the femme fatale should be perceived as “one of its most persistent incarnations” (Doane, 1991, p. 1). In “The Adolescent Boy: Fin-de-Siècle Femme Fatale?” (1999), Martha Vicinus, while making the case of the adolescent boy as a figure just as “troubling for the turn-of-the-century artist as the better-known predatory woman”, supports Bram Dijkstra’s argument4 that the late nineteenth-century European art was inhabited by “cultural misogyny”, where women were “always dangerous in the fantasies of artists and writers” (Vicinus, 1999, p. 83). Although Martha Vicinus considers Bram Dijkstra’s survey to be “simplistic”5, she corroborates the 92

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notion that “negative images of women” were connected with their sexuality, often depicted as predatory and positioned contiguously to witchcraft and enchantment (Vicinus, 1999, p. 83). In Mary Ann Doane’s introduction to Femmes Fatales: Feminism, Film Theory, Psychoanalysis (1991), titled “Deadly Women, Epistemology, and Film Theory”, the author asserts that the femme fatale is a character whose “most striking characteristic” is “that she never really is what she seems to be” (Doane, 1991, p. 1). The femme fatale cannot be fully understandable or predictable and, therefore, cannot be tamed. It is precisely because of these characteristics that her sensual nature and sexuality also “becomes the site of questions about what can and cannot be known” (Doane, 1991, p. 1). The issues regarding sexuality and its mysteriousness are inextricably tied to the femme fatale, given that she is a reflection of a certain kind of male-specific fears and anxieties, usually sexual in nature (i.e., fear of castration, uncontrollable drives, etc.) — going back to Carl Jung’s connection between the anima and erotic fantasies, with the femme fatale as a manifestation of both of them. The representation of the femme fatale is as inherently evil, demanding that she be punished, vanquished, or killed. This comes from the need, felt by the threatened male subject, to reassert control over the femme fatale, as she is the incarnation of male insecurities and death. Alas, Mary Ann Doane contends, the femme fatale is “not the subject of feminism but a symptom of male fears about feminism” (Doane, 1991, p. 2-3), given that it is a figure that encompasses several features that threaten traditional gender roles, upsetting normality. Additionally, Mary Ann Doane highlights the “special” relevance of the cinematic representations of the femme fatale (even though her roots are literary and pictorial), supporting the notion that the incarnation of the femme fatale in cinema is “a telling one” (Doane, 1991, p. 3). The author argues that it is unsurprising that cinema — due to its nature as a modern “technology of representation” (Doane, 1991, p. 2) — offered the femme fatale a “hospitable home”, which has led to a consistent presence under various incarnations, such as the “vamp” of the American silent cinema and the femme fatale of film noir in the 1940s (Doane, 1991, p. 2). In “American Dreams, Stifled Realities: Women and Pop Culture in the 1940s, ‘50s, and ‘60s”, a chapter from Feminism and Pop Culture (2008), Andi Zeisler likens the femme fatale to the onscreen display of women’s sexual agency and feminine representation in film noir, which the author designates as the “flip side of the 1940s woman’s film” (Zeisler, 2008, p. 34). These women were “vamps, liars, criminals, and double-crossers” (Zeisler, 2008, p. 34); they combined beauty with treachery, and possessed both sexual and intellectual power (and prowess) (Zeisler, 2008, p. 34). The femme fatale should be feared, then, because both her beauty and her intelligence are presented as being deceptive. Concerning the possibility of, in retrospective, considering these 1940s film noir protagonists as “proto-feminist 93

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characters”, Andi Zeisler argues that “it’s not quite that simple”6. As the dynamics and gender politics of the time were based on “mutual distrust and fear” instead of “equality” (Zeisler, 2008, p. 35), the women who did not conform to a more wholesome image (i.e., what Andi Zeisler identifies as this period’s “sacrificing mothers”7) inevitably got their comeuppance. Conversely, Camille Paglia, in her essay collection Sex, Art, and American Culture (1992), condemns a certain strand of feminism for trying to “dismiss the femme fatale as a misogynist libel, a hoary cliché”, when this figure actually expresses “woman’s ancient and eternal control of the sexual realm” (Paglia, 1992, p. 15). Undeniably, film noir has given us the most culturally prevalent and predominant idea of what it is that we talk about when we talk about femmes fatales (especially because of to the stylized stereotypes of women and their coded costuming, which were characteristics of this genre of films). It is, however, critical to mention a previous incarnation of the femme fatale (one that Mary Ann Doane touches upon): the “vamp” of American silent cinema. In Rethinking the Femme Fatale in Film Noir: Ready for Her Close-Up (2009), Julie Grossman places the “cinema vamp” as a representation that prevailed during the “the years intervening between Victorian representations of “bad women” and film noir’s ‘femmes fatales’” (Grossman, 2009, p. 122). If the “vamp” was the first incarnation of the femme fatale in American cinema, then Theda Bara8 was, as remarked upon by Karina Longworth, “the movie industry’s first sex symbol” and the first femme fatale in American cinema’s history. Theda Bara became a representation of both feminism and evil that equated sensuality and seduction as inherently dangerous and destructive forces. In the opinion of Dominique Mainon and James Ursini, Theda Bara “epitomizes the exoticism inextricably linked to the image of the femme fatale” with the “same combination of menace and allure which characterized the femmes fatales of history and fin-desiècle French literature” (Mainon and Ursini, 2009, p. 16). Karina Longworth dedicated the seventeenth episode of her aca-fan9 podcast You Must Remember This to “Theda Bara, Hollywood’s First Sex Symbol” (2014), describing her as the “embodiment of an intentionally scary fantasy during the very first days of Hollywood” (Longworth, 2014). As Karina Longworth deliberates, Theda Bara became known as “the vamp” (short for “vampire”) after her first film, A Fool There Was (Frank Powell, 1915). Julie Grossman likened the characterization of the “vamp” to that of a sorceress (Grossman, 2009, p. 122). Although the actress was not the first to be branded as a “vamp”, she ended up defining the “vamp sensibility” and thus became synonymous with it (Longworth, 2014). A Fool There Was was originally a play penned by Porter Emerson Browne, where a respectable American family man was lured to his ruin by a “witchy woman” (Longworth, 2014). In turn, this play had been inspired by both by the Philip BurneJones painting “The Vampire” (on view in 1897) and the Rudyard Kipling poem “The 94

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Vampire” (1897)10. As Julie Grossman points out, a direct link can be traced from “Victorian regulation of gender identities and Hollywood film” (Grossman, 2009, p. 123). At this point in time, as Karina Longworth elucidates, the word “vampire” could be attribute to a supernatural creature such as Dracula (Bram Stoker’s Dracula, 1987), or it could refer to a woman who destroys a man through her sexual power (Longworth, 2014), highlighting the importance of the connection of sexuality with a distinctive kind of deadliness and destruction. In 1998, in another biography of Theda Bara, Eve Golden posits that it was on the set of The Devil’s Daughter (Frank Powell, 1915) that Theda Bara received the nickname that “put her into dictionary”, as the crew affectionately called her “vamp”. Eve Golden states that if up until 1915, a “vamp” was synonymous with stage improvisation or the upper part of a shoe, by the end of that same year — and due to Theda Bara’s impact on culture — “vamp” had a new definition in its dictionary entry as “a woman who uses her charms and wiles to seduce and exploit men” (Golden, 1998, pp. 54-55). The protagonist of A Fool There Was was the epitome of the latter definition of a vampire and the “most influential film to initiate an on-screen projection of the deadly seductress figure” (Grossman, 2009). Frank Powell’s film was such a success that Fox, the studio that employed Theda Bara, kept casting her in “vampire”11 roles. At the same time, according to Ronald Ginini’s Theda Bara: A Biography of the Silent Screen Vamp, with a Filmography (1996), Fox publicized the actress’s persona to the trade press as being as serpentine, exotic and seductive as the roles she portrayed — the “beauty-that-drove-men-mad” (Ginini, 1996, p. 18) —, equating her with historic proto-femme fatales as Delilah and Lucrezia Borgia (Ginini, 1996, p. 18). There is also an interesting connection between Theda Bara’s “vamp” and feminism that is described through different perspectives by Eve Golden, Ronald Ginini and Karina Longworth. The actress has a famous quote wherein she states that: “the vampire I play is the vengeance of my sex upon its exploiters. You see, I have the face of a vampire, perhaps, but the heart of a ‘feministe’” (Golden, 1998, p. 105). Ronald Ginini employs this citation to make a larger point regarding Theda Bara’s connection with equal rights activism and the suffragette movement of the 1910s, a sign of the movie star showing a progressive stance in a conservative film industry (Ginini, 1996, pp. 67-69). Nevertheless, I prefer both Karina Longworth and Eve Golden’s reading of this quote, acknowledging it as an alignment of Theda Bara’s portrayal of a deadly, punishing and seductive woman with the cause of feminism12. If at first glance, this could seem like a silent film actress outlining a “proto-feminist revenge fantasy” intending to balance the gender scales (Longworth, 2014), it was much likelier that Theda Bara was instead acting, given as most of Theda Bara’s interactions with the press were fully staged, scripted affairs. Since Theda Bara was the movie screen’s embodiment of evil that, consequently, classified feminism as a force for evil (Longworth, 2014; Golden, 1998, p. 105). 95

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There are, of course, other elements to consider when declaring a portrayal of the “vamp” as inherently or not proto-feminist. Janet Staiger, in Bad Women: Regulating Sexuality in Early American Cinema (1995), rightly insists that films such as A Fool There Was assert “the value of a new, independent, intelligent, and aggressive woman, even a desiring woman” (Staiger, 1995, pp. xvi) — a woman whose representation directly subverts social norms aimed at subduing or controlling her. As Julie Grossman emphasizes, A Fool There Was offers an articulation of “a reasonable and sympathetic critique of the double standard that regulates gender roles”13 (Grossman, 2009, p. 124). Therefore, it too would be simplistic to label these representations of the “vamp” as merely “instances” of patriarchal repression of women” (Staiger, 1995, pp. xvi-xvii). Ultimately, there is an ongoing dynamic between misogyny and feminism concerning the representation of the “vamp” — and of the femme fatale. Significantly, though, the cinematic representation of the modern woman — either the “vamp” or, later, the femme fatale — is inevitably cast as a projection of male anxieties and fears — namely “symbolic castration and emasculation” (Mainon and Ursini, 2009, p. 19) —, which took occurrences of social progress (the suffragette movement, women joining the workforce during the World War II) and reconstructed them as instances of the destructiveness of female sexuality. Accordingly, the late-Victorian vampire, who had become the “vamp” of silent cinema, was converted into film noir’s femme fatale (Grossman, 2009, p. 129), as men came back from the war and women pushed back to their housebound roles. What had their women been up to? Were they recognizable and, if not, were they trustworthy? Did they still need a male figure in the same form as before? In Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944) — a film that marked the American film noir aesthetic and themes, as well as the concept of the 1940s femme fatale — it is telling that its “bad woman” confesses to have fallen in love with the male protagonist at the last second14. Going back to Femme Fatale: Cinema’s Most Unforgettable Lethal Ladies, Dominique Mainon enumerates some of the silver screen representations of the femme fatale, agreeing with the reading that, while the femme fatale figure came to life in silent films before and after her, Theda Bara’s embodiment gave the figure a new dimension (Mainon and Ursini, 2009, p. 11). According to Dominique Mainon and James Ursini, “Theda Bara’s only real competitor for the title of premiere vamp” was Louise Glaum (“The Domesticated Vamp”), who is almost forgotten nowadays (Mainon and Ursini, 2009, p. 21). From 1914 until 1921, she was cast in several films15 where she played a vamp, such as the “seductive villain” Milady in The Three Musketeers (Charles Swickard 1916). Another example was Alla Nazimova (“The Art Nouveau Vamp”), a “Russian theatrical star” and benefiter of “Hollywood’s interest in importing its femmes fatales” (Mainon and Ursini, 2009, p. 24), which increased their aura of mystery. As Dominique Mainon and James 96

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Ursini point out, the early years of cinema, be it silent or not, were fertile ground for the development of the image of the femme fatale, establishing her influence (Mainon and Ursini, 2009, p. 16). In the days of pre-Hays code films, in the words of Andi Zeisler, the women were allowed to be simultaneously “shamelessly sassy and questionably moral” — Jean Harlow, Clara Bow, Mae West, Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich16 (Zeisler, 2008, p. 30). These women were sexually empowered than the later classic Hollywood cinema’s representation of women, something that was toned down during the Hays Code, which contributed to enhance the femme fatale’s mysterious and ineligible characteristics. Still, the femme fatale, “a beautiful, intelligent, very sexual woman who becomes the hero’s downfall” (Lambert, 2014), is the ultimate film noir archetype — Barbara Stanwyck, Bette Davis, Gene Tierney, Rita Hayworth, Ava Gardner and Hedy Lamarr. In Femme Fatale: Cinema’s Most Unforgettable Lethal Ladies there is a chapter titled “Film Noir’s Deadly Female: Subversion and Transgression” where Dominique Mainon and James Ursini point to the beginning of World War II as the moment where the “production code office’s freeze on creativity (…) began to thaw” — although the Hays Code was very much against the production Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944) getting made, for example (Faraci and Nicholson, 2015) — and the inevitable “disruptions” were permitted to come to light (Mainon and Ursini, 2009, p. 113). There was an overall “taste for more realistic and stimulating portrayals of life” but also of women (Mainon and Ursini, 2009, p. 113). According to these authors, film noir would have, then, been born out of disturbance and with came a “slew of lethal ladies” (Mainon and Ursini, 2009, p. 113) that determined the “preferred reading”17 when it comes to the notion of a cinematic femme fatale. In Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts (2012), Susan Hayward describes film noir as a genre but also as a movement that emerged from a period of political instability, insecurity and paranoia. In the 35th episode of the podcast The Canon, Devin Faraci and Amy Nicholson, two film critics, talked about Double Indemnity. Like Susan Hayward, Devin Faraci describes film noir as being “not 100%” a genre but rather a movement that was recognized “in retrospect”, making it difficult to determine the parameters of film noir (Faraci and Nicholson, 2015). The basic ones he underlines are: a crime story being told by the point of view of the criminal (more often than not); the crime almost always (independent of monetary gain) has a psychosexual component, some kind of an erotic aspect to it”; traditionally it uses stark photography and black and white photography (Faraci and Nicholson, 2015). As per Susan Hayward’s account, film noir possesses three main characteristics: its stylized cinematography (an exploration of cinematography based on chiaroscuro18), a stylized narrative with stylized stereotypes, especially when it comes to the female protagonists. The focus on chiaroscuro, or, more generally, contrast lighting, permits 97

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the construct a particular sense of gloom, malaise or suspicion; with the city as the typical setting (Hayward, 2012, p. 129). The city as a location is proemintly featured in Victorian representations as being “tainted and corrupt” (Grossman, 2009, p. 112). In film noir, the city’s portrayal is frequently connected to the femme fatale and to a sense of danger and corruption19, matching the dangerous and corrupted (or willing to corrupt) nature of the femme fatale is dangerous and wishes to corrupt men. The oppressive and treacherous characteristics of the cityscape are emphasized by a cinematography that calls for dim or ill lit streets and dark corners, employed in order to symbolize an intrinsic “difficulty in discerning truth” (Hayward, 2012, p. 130). Accordingly, film noir’s characters are similarly ambiguous; which upholds Mary Ann Doane’s assessment that the femme fatale is unpredictable and indecipherable, making it impossible to discern the truth in her, precisely because “she never really is what she seems to be” (Doane, 1991, p. 1) — like the cityscape, the femme fatale does not show her true self, only facets, concealing traps. Film noir’s stylized narrative habitually involves a mystery, a murder and is strongly connected to the “hard-boiled detective” genre; it is also often considered to be “a sub-genre of the crime thriller or gangster movie – although as a style it can also be found in other genres” (Hayward, 2012, p. 128). According to classic canon, the protagonist is typically male and morally ambiguous, neither totally bad nor totally good — film noir normally gives prevalence to the male perspective, markedly positioning the femme fatale as inscrutable and enigmatic. The male protagonist also frequently “mistreats or ignores” a good woman20 in favor of the lure of a femme fatale who, more often than not, is the perpetrator of all his troubles, which is a trope perfectly captured in Double Indemnity (Wilder, 1944). The male protagonist has a tendency to be obsessive and neurotic (about the femme fatale and about his work, which usually co-exist in tandem, especially if he is a detective or a cop21) and equally capable of duplicity and treachery towards his femme fatale, due to the pre-established and above-mentioned ambiguity of his own morals (Hayward, 2012, p. 130). Inevitably, film noir is about power relations and sexual identity. The power that the femme fatale exerts over the hero is of a sexual and inherently duplicitous nature, but it is also enabled by his own weakness. The femme fatale is portrayed as too seductive and enticing for him to resist; leading the male protagonist to either struggle to break away from the spell or subdue her power through love (Hayward, 2012, p. 130). In Gilda (Charles Vidor, 1946), Rita Hayworth plays the eponymous character whose allure renders the protagonist incapable of resisting her, but not incapable of punishing her — punishment she endures out of love. In Julie Grossman’s opinion, though, while the character of Gilda evokes the epitome of the femme fatale, the film itself positions her “as sympathetic and victimized by the men around her”, making the film about misogyny instead of being a misogynist film. 98

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The author proceeds saying that “in most film noir movies, sympathy is afforded to the female characters too simply categorized as ‘femmes fatales’ by critics and popular discourse” (Grossman, 2009, p. 44). Julie Grossman identifies the femme fatale with “canonical baddies” such as Barbara Stanwyck’s Phyllis Dietrichson (Double Indemnity, 1944) and Mary Astor’s Brigid O’Shaughnessy (The Maltese Falcon, John Huston, 1941), although I would argue that a femme fatale can be as morally uncertain as her male counterpart without necessarily, even if customary, fall within villainous territory. In fact, a line can be drawn between “canonical baddies” and more sympathetic femme fatales, whose “crimes” are correlated with “fighting back” and speaking up (Grossman, 2009, p. 103) — Gilda is a particularly interesting case study of the film noir and femme fatale tropes. Unlike the preferred reading to which Susan Hayward refers when stating that the male protagonist “usually mistreats or ignores his ‘woman’ (…) and gets hooked on a femme fatale who (…) is the perpetrator of all his troubles” (Hayward, 2012, p. 130); in Gilda, Rita Hayworth is the one that is mistreated by Glenn Ford’s Johnny Farrell because she is the femme fatale that holds “verbal, psychological, and sexual power over him” (Grossman, 2009, p. 28). This way, both Phyllis Dietrichson and Gilda can co-exist as similar but not identical femmes fatales, within films that can be more or less understanding towards them. Julie Grossman, in particular, is very critical of both critics and pop culture’s misgivings concerning the femme fatale’s motives, which mostly just muddle “our understanding of the gender fantasies that surround these so-called bad women” (Grossman, 2009, p. 22; Staiger, 1995). According to Susan Hayward, this sympathy combined with the fact that film noir offers a very central role to the femme fatale, favoring her as “active, intelligent, powerful, dominant and in charge of her own sexuality”22, render this genre less “clearcut in its misogyny”, and even admiring of (and seduced by) its disruptive character (Hayward, 2012, p. 130). According to both Janet Staiger and Julie Grossman, it is imperative not to forget the extent to which the role of the femme fatale depends on the theme of female independence (predominantly from male dominance). In any case — even considering female characters who do not “conform to the notion of the quintessential ‘femme fatale’” that has come to define the category (Grossman, 2009, p. 22) — the femme fatale represents a discontinuity from “classic Hollywood cinema’s representation of women (within restrictive dichotomies of mother/whore or wife/mistress)”, as the femme fatale possesses agency, over her actions and over her own sexuality, which is, ultimately, what renders her so dangerous and “deadly” to the male protagonist — both “guns and looks can kill” (Hayward, 2012, p. 131). Dominique Mainon and James Ursini point to “The Rise of the International Femme Fatale” after the femme fatale of the early 1950s “went into remission”, which opened the door for international movie stars (such as Brigitte Bardot, Barbara 99

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Steele, Anita Ekberg) to fill the “need for strong female characters” — to which the exception might have been Elizabeth Taylor (Mainon & Ursini, 2009, p. 186). The authors cite as reasons for this remission: the promotion of a vision of America that centered around the nuclear family (something the femme fatale had previously threatened); and emphasized characters that fell into more wholesome categories, such as the “virginal girl”, the “happy homemaker” or even the “dumb bombshell”/“sex object” personified by Marilyn Monroe (Mainon & Ursini, 2009, p. 186). Eventually, Dominique Mainon and James Ursini tackle what they consider “The Post-Feminist Explosion” of the 1970s and 1990s, following the rise of the second and third waves of feminism, respectively. While I disagree with the notion that women reclaimed the femme fatale from “its male guardians” (Mainon and Ursini, 2009, p. 260), I do consider that its representation began to reflect social change. Although the “feminist transformation” of the femme fatale, which I argue culminates in Gone Girl’s Amy Dune, was slow, there are more contemporary examples of note: such as Isabella Rossellini in Blue Velvet (David Lynch, 1986), Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct (Paul Verhoeven, 1992), Rebecca Romijn in Femme Fatale (Brian De Palma, 2002), or Katherine Waterston in Inherent Vice (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2014). Finally, I would like to address the question of fetishism as it concerns the femme fatale, specifically through costuming, clothes and hair. The representation, in film noir movies of the femme fatale has commodified the “untrustworthy femme fatale” as dressed in a long slinky gown, high-heel shoes, red lips and painted fingernails, turning the femme fatale’s body into a specifically coded — these accouterments serve to both enhance her beauty and sensual nature as well as to code her as an enigmatic, cosmopolitan and toxic creature — and fetishized object on screen (Hayward, 2012, p. 295-301). Returning to the idea of inscrutability, the femme fatale accentuates her image — “Flawlessly coiffed, impeccably dressed” (Rothfeld, 2014), and oozing with sexuality — so that said image is the focus of the male protagonist’s attention, which plays a part in deceiving him and in hiding her motives and schemes. This fetishistic, coded facade becomes its own commentary on the superficial nature of the male “hero”, as he is easily seduced by her appearance and, therefore, underestimates the femme fatale’s intelligence and wit — “a concealed identity always just beyond the visible surface” (Hanson & O’Rawe, 2010, p. 1).

AMY DUNE, GONE GIRL’S MODERN FEMME FATALE I now would like to focus on David Fincher’s psychological mystery thriller Gone Girl (2014) and the modern femme fatale that is Amy Dune, while tracing a direct connection between Theda Bara’s “vamp” and film noir’s femme fatale — complete with its quintessential, albeit modernized, characteristics. Adapted from the 100

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best-selling novel of the same name, penned by Gillian Flynn (who also wrote the screenplay) and released in 2012, the narrative centers around Nick and Amy Dune’s troubled marriage and the latter’s disappearance, following what is an apparent home invasion. Nick (Ben Affleck) initially appears innocent, as he cooperates with the police investigation. Meanwhile, Amy (Rosamund Pike) contributes with a persistent voiceover, staged like readings of entries in her diary, that flashes back through the major benchmarks of their relationship (first meeting, first kiss, first anniversary, first indications of discord). As the past begins to intersect with the present, Nick’s unclear innocence or guilt becomes less of a matter of fact and more a matter of perception. Both the film and the book’s major twist is that all those diary entries voiced-over by Amy were fabricated in order to implicate Nick in the murder of his wife, who has, in actuality, merely disappeared and gone into hiding. However, the structure of the book differs from the structure of the film. The book is structured through intercalated diary entries (that serve, to the audience, as point-of-view chapters) of both Nick and Amy (the movie eschews that device in Nick’s case and immediately after Amy’s confession that she is alive and has ben deceiving both her husband and the spectator/reader), as the author throughout the book indicates that Nick has been similarly deceitful in his recounting of events: they are both unreliable and manipulative narrators. At the same time that the investigation on Amy’s apparent kidnapping and presumed murder unfolds, Nick has his own mystery to solve. Due to the fact that it is their five-year anniversary, Amy has prepared a game of clues, more precisely a “treasure hunt”, that is a tradition, begrudged by Nick of theirs. These clues lead to specific objects being planted by Amy in particular places (i.e., a pair of underwear to symbolize Nick’s infidelity, a burnt diary23, a blood-stained murder weapon) that imply Nick’s shortcomings as a husband as well as, and more importantly, implicate him in her apparent murder. One smart addition to the film is the enlargement of the media element, highlighting how the public’s perception of a story can influence how it unfolds. The film, more than the book, heavily plays with the notion of media perception and persecution, as well as the sense of the difficulty in getting to the truth of a matter when perception formats opinion. This perception can be manipulated, as Amy orchestrates it, by whatever facets of the couple’s life come to light. Both Amy and Nick utilize whatever means they have to sway the public’s opinion in their favor — Amy by befriend a neighbor and feeding her information, and Nick by presenting a remorseful portrait of himself on national television. When Amy is on the run she is robbed and is, therefore, forced to unlikely seek refuge with obsessive ex-boyfriend, Desi (Neil Patrick Harris), who has remained unhealthily devoted to Amy since their short-lived high school romance. Desi shelters and provides Amy with accommodation in his secluded lake house. After Nick’s mistress reveals their affair at a press conference (beating him to the punch and making him look worse 101

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than ever). Counseled by a specialist lawyer named Tanner Bolt (an excellent Tyler Perry), Nick appears on a talk show to both profess his innocence and apologize for his failures as a husband, intended on cleaning up his image and hoping to lure Amy out of hiding (in order to effectively prove his innocence). His performance, which includes a specific coded gesture to her, renews Amy’s romantic feelings for him and sparks in her the will to repair their marriage. At the same time, Detective Boney (Kim Dickens) formally charges Nick with murder. In order to escape Desi’s stranglehold on her, Amy takes desperate measures to escape and inflicts injuries upon herself to make seem as though Desi kidnapped and sexually abused her. She then seduces Desi and kills him24 in a wincingly gory scene. Amy returns home, in a spectral white slip and drenched in Desi’s blood (evoking Lady Macbeth), making a dramatic and triumphant return. She names Desi as her captor and rapist, clearing Nick of any charges. In the end, she forces Nick to remain in their marriage, revealing that she is pregnant with his child and advocating that are perfectly matched. Ultimately, there is ambiguity as to whether Nick stays solely because he has to, as his twin sister Margo (Carrie Coon) humiliatingly accuses him: “You want to stay with her”. “We’re partners in crime,” Nick later says in their last television interview. It is essential to explore how this film adheres to the genre and visual style conventions of the thriller and film noir and how, as a contemporary movie, it is indebted to earlier traditions concerning narrative manipulation. Writing for his website Observations on film art, film scholar David Bordwell published a blog post titled “Gone Grrrl” (2014) apropos of the David Fincher film, arguing that mysterybased plots require some sort of “storytelling subterfuge”, especially given that: “In mystery stories, characters keep secrets from each other and the author must keep secrets from the audience as well” (Bordwell, 2014). In essence, Gone Girl works as a detective story, within the film noir genre, one which usually employs some sort of narrative deception, although the unapologetic narrative manipulation of Gillian Flynn’s novel, and, therefore, of the film (i.e., concealing the fact that Amy is not really dead or missing) seems unmatched. David Fincher and Gillian Flynn share a predilection for the psychology of dark mysteries and Gone Girl perfectly suits the director’s strengths, given his precise and withholding nature as a storyteller. The singularly manipulative and deceiving structure of Gone Girl captures the ethos of the femme fatale. Frequently, both the film noir and thriller genres (inherently mystery-based) have to conceal the nature of their structure and ease the audience, who “must first be seduced with characterizations and settings” (Lambert, 2014), into their narrative. There is an effortless quality present in this kind of construction just as there is when it comes to the fetishized body of the femme fatale — the film is as put together and as distractingly seductive as its deadly woman. Cinematic femme fatales present themselves as perfect put together and as flawlessly as these films, their allure comes, among other things, from their enticing presentation. 102

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The audience should, ideally, never see it — the narrative treachery and concealment — coming. David Bordwell remarks that although the narrative begins with the “classic murderous husband” hypothesis, the film never actually gives any signs that Nick has killed or harmed Amy in any way. This offers the storytelling path of, similar to the movie Suspicion (Alfred Hitchcock, 1941), “confining us to the wife’s range of knowledge” (Bordwell, 2014). At this point, the film to present us with Amy’s diary entries, which are used as flashback tools from her point of view, contributing to a “familiar arc of suspicion” (Bordwell, 2014). Nevertheless, in analogous fashion to Alfred Hitchcock’s Suspicion, the audience has been tricked through the misrepresentation of the husband. Therefore, the convention of the murderous husband is tossed aside and is substituted by a second (and rarer) type of domestic thriller: the “homicidal woman” (Bordwell, 2014), which can be seen in its most iconic form in Ellen Berent (Gene Tierney), the protagonist of Leave Her to Heaven (John M. Stahl, 1946). This film portrays one of film noir’s “mad” women, clearly suffering from mental illness, as were many of the cinematic women labeled as murderesses and femme fatales. Interestingly, Ellen’s vindictive plans are very much in line with Amy’s. While Ellen wishes no harm to her husband Dick (Richard Harland), she wants to eliminate anybody with whom she’d have to share him. So she lets his little, disabled brother drown and induces the miscarriage of her unborn child for fear they would come between Dick and her. Later, she poisons herself and sets up her sister Ruth (Jeanne Crain) to take the blame, so as to prevent her from getting romantically involved with Dick. Amy similarly prepares an elaborate murder but, in her case, to punish her husband for his infidelity and role in the souring of their marriage, equally contemplating suicide in order to seal Nick’s fate. At one point in Gone Girl, Nick practices what he will say in order to reveal Amy’s true nature to the media: “Everything you have heard about my wife is a lie. She is a calculating, murderous psychopath. And I have been complicit…”, thus unequivocally assigning a definite “madness” or mental condition to his wife. Amy is, then, characterized as belonging to both the “mad” and the “bad” women labels of the femme fatale. Additionally, throughout the film, Nick discovers that Amy has “punished” other lovers for perceived slights, indicating a disturbing history: “Here she is the peril” (Bordwell, 2014). Concerning the plot structure of Gone Girl, just as this film offers two classic film noir and thriller plots in one movie, it also offers two climaxes: in the first, Nick in formally charged and Amy kills Desi, making her escape; in the second climax, Amy thwarts Nick’s intention of revealing the true nature of her schemes. David Bordwell points out that if we place Nick in the position of being the film’s protagonist and Amy the antagonist, we have one of the very atypical cases of mainstream cinematic entertainment where the antagonist wins (Bordwell, 2014). This is an atypical case because, as Susan Hayward observes, the femme fatale has 103

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a central part in film noir up only until “the end of the film when she pays for it (through death or submission to the patriarchal system)” (Hayward, 2012, p. 130). Amy never meets her death nor does she submit to the man’s influence over her (as Phyllis Dietrichson in Double Indemnity), if anything it is Nick who submits in the end, an occurrence that supports Molly Lambert’s theory that perhaps Nick too is a homme fatal in his own right25. Additionally, the fact that Nick becomes complicit in Amy’s crimes, as well as the couple’s guilt-transfer dynamic, is analogous to such films as Shadow of a Doubt (Alfred Hitchcock, 1943), Strangers on a Train (Alfred Hitchcock, 1951). This is also apparent in the Leave Her to Heaven novel, where the male protagonist becomes an accomplice to Ellen’s act of drowning his brother, keeping quiet because of the child Ellen says she is carrying (Bordwell, 2014) — mirroring Gone Girl’s ending. Regarding the film’s cinematography, Gone Girl does not possess film noir’s stylized aesthetic of chiaroscuro contrasting lighting. Gone Girl’s cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth keeps the color palette muted and realistic, tinged with the cold blue hues that characterize David Fincher’s films. There is also a fragmented approach to the framing of objects in certain key scenes — especially when showing what Molly Lambert calls the “sensually sinister close-ups of mundane objects (Lambert, 2014)”. Within the analysis of Gone Girl, it is fundamental to explore the characterization of Amy Dunne, following a more specific approach to how that character represent a modern femme fatale as well as the “embodiment of an intentionally scary fantasy” (Longworth, 2014). In fact, Amy is the perfect modern embodiment of the femme fatale, although her defining qualities do not merely encompass being seductive and deadly. She is Dominique Mainon personification of the “intoxicating allure of sex and death” and Carl Jung’s anima that becomes a death demon, especially when considering her relationship with Desi that ends with Amy killing him in the middle of intercourse. In fact, because Amy specifically choses to do it this way, instead of any other, inextricably links sex and death. Her character also makes specific uses of sex and seduction in the film and Nick discovers a troubled history with past lovers, as the film presents mounting evidence of Amy’s use of sex as a weapon. Desi, a former high-school boyfriend, was served with a restraining order for reasons never made explicit in the film — although, in the book, it is clear that Amy finds off-putting his constant desire to be needed, to be a girl’s source of comfort — while still keeping in contact with him, secretly, over many years. Nick also discovers that Amy also castigated a former boyfriend by feigning sexual assault, allegedly over a perceived slight regarding a tie (as the ex-boyfriend himself recounts to Nick), followed by a disinterest in said boyfriend. This is perhaps the clearest way in which Amy becomes a de facto personification of men’s fears when it comes to women and their command of sexuality as a power, subscribing to a 104

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male narrative that is base on insecurity and powerlessness. Despite the coldness of David Fincher’s filmmaking style and of Rosamund Pike’s performance, Amy Dunne is not characterized by frigidness (although she does fall in the Hitchcockian category of “icy blonde”), even though she uses sex in a calculated fashion, as a way for her to assert dominance over men. Going back to Susan Hayward’s reflections over the femme fatale of the 1940s film noir, the power Amy exerts over men is inextricably tied to her sexuality and, just like the character of Phyllis Dietrichson in the film Double Indemnity, Gone Girl offers the portrayal of a femme fatale who is “active, intelligent, powerful, dominant and in charge of her own sexuality” (Hayward, 2012, p.130). In her piece “The Eye of the Beholder: What David Fincher Sees” (2014), Molly Lambert argues that Gone Girl approaches marriage as a murder mystery. There is a public persona, a more curated version of ourselves, which is what seduces a partner into falling in love26. The femme fatale also presents a more alluring version of herself, a necessarily deceitful version of herself in order to seduce the male protagonist. Amy also is the embodiment of Mary Ann Doane’s mysterious creature that “never really is what she seems to be”. Amy and Nick are shown to be a perfect match together, so much so that Amy muses: “And what’s the point of being together if you’re not the happiest?”. As “Nick got lazy” (as Amy recounts in a monologue during the movie) and Amy started to reveal more about her personality than before, the cracks on the (perfect) facade appeared — as it happens over the course any other romantic relationship or marriage, following a pattern of concealment, surface and revelation that is inherent to the unfolding of a mystery. As flaws become more apparent, the reveal of each other’s “real” personality mirrors the structure by which film noir ultimately reveals to the male protagonist the betrayal of his femme fatale, and therefore her true nature, to the male protagonist. In the case of Gone Girl, Amy perceives that it was she who was betrayed by Nick. Throughout the film, there is a tension between what is Diary Amy (surface) and the Real Amy (depth), which also plays with the dynamic of concealment and revelation27 (of, essentially, mystery and seduction) that “is mirrored in the technical aspects of constructing a mystery for film” (Lambert, 2014). “Mirrored” is an accurate expression, as it immediately relates to the aforementioned concepts of surface and depth, but is also connected with the figure of the femme fatale through her employment of deceit and a desirable, but ultimately unattainable, façade. The unknowable nature of the femme fatale is akin to both the withholding and deceitful construction of a film noir or a thriller as well as the dynamic of marriage. Additionally, unlike other representations of the femme fatale that were presented at threats to the nuclear family or the home life, Amy Dune is one femme fatale that, on the contrary, is very much interested in up keeping those family values, given that her happy ending is being reunited with her husband Nick and announcing her pregnancy. 105

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Finally, I would like to defend the interpretation of Amy Dunne as a feminist update of the traditional film noir role of the femme fatale, supporting the perspective that it is the “patriarchy that Amy is up against: one in which men don’t have to care, or even respond to female caring, because they hold all the cards” (Rothfeld, 2014). As Theda Bara was quoted saying — even if it was expressed or written as an attempt to connect feminism with evil — Amy Dune does try to balance the gender scales by asserting her dominance, through her sexuality by also through her intelligence, which is truly the mark of a femme fatale as described by Susan Hayward and Julie Grossman. Her thesis and, eventually, the reasoning behind her unhinged revenge plan is explained through the “Cool Girl” monologue28 (although the film has a slightly altered version of this). Ultimately, Amy rallies against the men in her life they only want “various iterations of the Cool Girl” (Rothfeld, 2014). Desi, for example, wanted Amy in a certain way: her hair her natural color of blonde, thin and dressed with fashionable clothes of his own choosing, and secluded in his own house, at her daily disposal. Nick, on the other hand, wants a wife that does not question him or his choices (the move to North Carthage, Missouri), but seems uninterested in her inner life and has no idea how she occupies her time: “When the police question Nick about Amy’s friends and hobbies, he cannot answer—he never thought to ask” (Rothfeld, 2014). Amy Dune offers an account of a feminist “neo-femme fatale” in that she holds Nick accountable for his actions (Rothfeld, 2014), instead of letting him get away with it — “Grown-ups work for things. Grown-ups pay. Grown-ups suffer consequences.” (a line from the “Cool Girl” monologue). Unlike other iterations of the “deadly woman”, Amy does not get punished in the end and gets away with her retribution. Gillian Flynn has argued that women need to be given a multitude of representations of other women that do not only include “appropriate” portrayals of good or strong but one-tone women. The author argues that there is both a need and a demand for female portrayals that are just as bad, just as evil as men are permitted to be (Burkeman, 2015). Amy Dune is, at her best and her worst, the most interesting, layered and complex depiction of the femme fatale in our contemporaneity.

REFERENCES Bordwell, D. (2014). Gone Grrrl: David Bordwell’s website on cinema. Observations on Film Art. Retrieved from http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2014/10/21/ gone-grrrl/ Buci-Glucksmann, C. (1984). La raison baroque: De Baudelaire a Benjamin. Paris: Galilee. 106

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Burkeman, O. (2015). Gillian Flynn on Her Bestseller Gone Girl and Accusations of Misogyny. The Guardian. Accessed July 30, from http://www.theguardian.com/ books/2013/may/01/gillian-flynn-bestseller-gone-girl-misogyny Coffin, L. (2014). Review: Gone Girl Is A Solid Noir Marred By Sloppy Storytelling and Sexism. Retrieved from http://www.themarysue.com/gone-girl-review/ Dijkstra, B. (1988). Idols of Perversity: Fantasies of Feminine Evil in Fin-de-Siècle Culture. New York, NY: Oxford Paperbacks. Doane, M. A. (1991). Femmes Fatales: Feminism, Film Theory, Psychoanalysis. New York: Routledge. Ebert, R. (1986). Blue Velvet Movie Review & Film Summary (1986) | Roger Ebert. Retrieved from http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/blue-velvet-1986 Eve, The Lady. (2015). 1958: Marilyn Monroe Poses for Life Magazine and Richard Avedon. More Reel Life... Accessed February 26, from https://evesreellife. wordpress.com/2012/08/04/1958-marilyn-monroe-poses-for-life-magazine-andrichard-avedon/ Faraci, D., & Nicholson, A. (2015). The Canon 35: “Double Indemnity”. You Must Remember This. Accessed February 26, from http://thecanon.wolfpop.com/ audio/25888/double-indemnity Fincher, D. (2014). Gone Girl. Drama, Mystery, Thriller. Flynn, G. (2012). Gone Girl (1st ed.). New York: Crown. Ginini, R. (1996). Theda Bara: A Biography of the Silent Screen Vamp, with a Filmography. McFarland. Golden, E. (1998). Vamp: The Rise and Fall of Theda Bara. Lanham, MD: Vestal Press. Grossman, J. (2009). Rethinking the Femme Fatale in Film Noir: Ready for Her Close-Up. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1057/9780230274983 Hanson, H., & O’Rawe, C. (Eds.). (2010). The Femme Fatale: Images, Histories, Contexts. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1057/9780230282018 Hayward, S. (2012). Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts (4th ed.). New York: Routledge. Hoffman, J. (2015). ‘Inherent Twice’: Are Some Movies Allowed to Require a Second Viewing? Vanity Fair. January 9. http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/01/ inherent-vice-second-viewing 107

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Hornaday, A. (2015). ‘Inherent Vice’ Movie Review: Paul Thomas Anderson’s Loaded Look Back at 1970s Los Angeles. The Washington Post. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/goingoutguide/inherent-vice-movie-review-paulthomas-andersons-loaded-look-back-at-1970s-los-angeles/2015/01/07/3d80ba62969e-11e4-aabd-d0b93ff613d5_story.html Hulk, F. C. (2015). Film Crit Hulk Smash: Dialogues, GONE GIRL And The Maybe-Art Of Post-Feminist Pulp. Badass Digest. Retrieved from http://badassdigest.com/2015/01/13/film-crit-hulk-smash-dialogues-gone-girl-and-the-maybeart-of-post-feminist/ Inherent Vice. (2015). The Dissolve. Accessed July 7, from https://thedissolve.com/ reviews/1261-inherent-vice/ Jung, C. G. (Ed.). (1968). Man and His Symbols. New York: Dell. Koski, G. (2014). Gone Girl. The Dissolve. Retrieved from https://thedissolve.com/ reviews/1106-gone-girl/ Lambert, M. (2014). The Eye of the Beholder: What David Fincher Sees. Grantland. Retrieved from http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/david-finchervideography-movies-gone-girl-noir/ Longworth, K. (2015). YMRT #17 Theda Bara, Hollywood’s First Sex Symbol. You Must Remember This. Accessed February 26, from http://youmustrememberthispodcast.tumblr.com/post/99410649764/ymrt-17-theda-bara-hollywoods-first-sexsymbol Mainon, D., & Ursini, J. (2009). Femme Fatale: Cinema’s Most Unforgettable Lethal Ladies. New York: Limelight. Paglia, C. (1992). Sex, Art, and American Culture: Essays. New York: Vintage. Phipps, K. (2015). Out Of The Past: David Lynch’s Blue Velvet Was Released Today in 1986. The Dissolve. Accessed July 8, from https://thedissolve.com/news/3286out-of-the-past-david-lynchs-blue-velvet-was-relea/ Rainey, S. (2014). Gone Girl the Film: Suburban Noir That’s Got Us Hooked. Retrieved from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/11133307/Gone-Girlthe-film-suburban-noir-thats-got-us-hooked.html Rothfeld, B. (2014). Gone Girl’s Feminist Update of the Old-Fashioned Femme Fatale. The New Republic. Retrieved from http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119743/ gone-girl-has-offered-feminism-new-hero

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Seitz, M. Z. (2014). Gone Girl Movie Review & Film Summary (2014) | Roger Ebert. Retrieved from http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/gone-girl-2014 Singer, M. (2014). In David Fincher’s Movies, Relationships Are Here Today, Gone Tomorrow. The Dissolve. Retrieved from https://thedissolve.com/features/ exposition/770-in-david-finchers-movies-relationships-are-here-to/ Staiger, J. (1995). Bad Women: Regulating Sexuality in Early American Cinema. Minneapolis, MN: Univ Of Minnesota Press. Stevens, D. (2014). Gone Girl. Slate. Retrieved from http://www.slate.com/articles/ arts/movies/2014/10/david_fincher_s_gone_girl_starring_ben_affleck_reviewed. html Tobias, S. (2014). Op-Ed: Understanding Gone Girl through an Even Nastier Cinematic Precedent. The Dissolve. Retrieved from https://thedissolve.com/news/3504op-ed-understanding-gone-girl-through-an-even-nast/ Valentine, G. (2015). How the Vampire Became Film’s Most Feminist Monster. The Dissolve. Retrieved from https://thedissolve.com/features/exposition/964-how-thevampire-became-films-most-feminist-monster/ Vicinus, M. (1999). The Adolescent Boy: Fin-de-Siècle Femme Fatale? In Victorian Sexual Dissidence (pp. 83–106). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Zeisler, A. (2008). Feminism and Pop Culture: Seal Studies. Berkeley, CA: Seal Press.

ENDNOTES

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The book is co-authored with James Ursini, but the introduction is penned by Dominique Mainon. “The early Christian ‘father’ of the Church Tertullian would later condemn all women as the first sinners, proclaiming to them: ‘You are the devil’s gateway’” (Mainon and Ursini, 2009), which places the woman, early on, as inherently evil and as someone to be tamed and controlled. See Buci-Glucksmann, C. (1984). La raison baroque: De Baudelaire a Benjamin (Paris: Galilee) 34. See Dijkstra, B. (1988). Idols of Perversity: Fantasies of Feminine Evil in Fin-de-Siècle Culture. New York, NY: Oxford Paperbacks. As it “disregards or ignores other powerful cultural images” (Vicinus, 1999).

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Although it may not be “so simple”, Susan Hayward argues that “film noir is not so clearcut in its misogyny”, a matter that will be address ahead (Hayward, 2012). Zeisler, 2008, p. 34. Née Theodosia Burr Goodman. An academic who identifies as a fan. Which was, in turn, also motivated by the Philip Burne-Jones “The Vampire” painting. In such films as Sin (Herbert Brenon, 1915), Destruction (Will S. Davis, 1915), Siren of Hell (Raoul Walsh, 1915), The Serpent (Raoul Walsh, 1916), Gold and the Woman (James Vincent, 1916), as well as many others. “Even in the extremely unlikely case that the words are Theda’s own, they display the worst of men’s fears about feminists: vengeful, castrating harpies bent on punishing men for their misdeeds” (Golden, 1998). “You men shield each other’s shameful sins. But were it a woman at fault, how quick you’d be to expose and condemn her” in A Fool There Was (Frank Powell, 1915). Phyllis: “No, I never loved you, Walter, not you or anybody else. I’m rotten to the heart. I used you just as you said. That’s all you ever meant to me. Until a minute ago, when I couldn’t fire that second shot. I never thought that could happen to me” in Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944). Films with names such as The Leopard Woman (Wesley Ruggles, 1920), Sex (Fred Niblo, 1920) and The Wolf Woman (Raymond B. West, 1916). Its curious to see the designations given to some of the femmes fatales that Dominique Mainon and James Ursini identify, such as Clara Bow as “A Vamp for the Jazz Age” (Mainon and Ursini, 2009, p. 40), Greta Garbo as “The Femme Fatale as Goddess” (Mainon and Ursini, 2009, p. 55), Mae West as “The Vamp as Parody” (Mainon and Ursini, 2009, p. 71), and Marlene Dietrich as “The Femme Fatale as ‘Domme’” (Mainon and Ursini, 2009, p. 16). (…) the filmic codes and conventions germane to a particular genre” (Hayward, 2012, p. 310). “Chiaroscuro” means “light/dark” and is a form of producing contrasting cinematography. The city is also associated with the vampy femme fatale of the silent era in movies such as Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (F. W. Murnau, 1927), where a “Woman from the City” (Margaret Livingston) seduces a man into trying to kill his wife. According to Susan Hayward, “either the wife, very much tucked away out of the city, or the moll with the golden heart who invariably sees the ‘truth’” (Hayward, 2012).

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Although a detective usually works better in terms of expressing moral ambiguity. “(...) at least until the end of the film when she pays for it (through death or submission to the patriarchal system)” (Hayward, 2012). Containing her forged entries. By slicing his throat mid-coitus. “(…) it’s equally possible that Nick Dunne is the femme fatale. Fincher has shown a fearlessness about objectifying beautiful men in an unrepentantly homoerotic way since long before ‘Fight Club’, having been in the trenches of ‘Vogue’ with Madonna” (Lambert, 2014). This idea of public persona is especially interesting when considering this film because of the representation of media as a tool to shape perception and audience’s reception of and opinion on what the truth of a situation might be. Concealment and revelation is also present in the trap Amy lays for Nick (the extent to which we don’t discover until later in the movie) and the game of clues she plays with him concerning her previously prepared treasure hunt. In a particularly meta-moment, a police officer (examining the couple’s room after Nick alerted the police to her disappearance) finds an envelope continuing the “first clue”. “Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl.”

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Horror’s Seduction through Art: Death Representation Teresa Lousa University of Lisbon, Portugal

ABSTRACT Regarding the horror is possible to identify a paradox: the binomial repulsion and attraction. Art has always had a privileged role in Horror’s representation, being a favorable medium to its transfiguration. The idea that beauty was an unshakable criteria of artistic representation is quite naive, particularly if we think about the artistic production since modernity. Not only art represented the horror and the macabre since immemorial times, but it also has been a way of reflection about death, the most inscrutable mystery of life. The Abject Art, for instance, search for a lost and desired territory: the body without guilt. Revealing the eschatological nature of the body, several contemporary artistic works put the spectator in constant ambiguity between pleasure and pain, desire and disgust, namely when such works use the death body as an artistic material, breaking, in a fatal seduction, the most feared of the social taboos.

INTRODUCTION In this chapter is intended to make a reflection on the power of seduction that horror plays through art representation. Art becomes a single and perfect medium of transfiguring the disgust attraction for the horror. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-0525-9.ch006 Copyright ©2017, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Horror’s Seduction through Art

In the first part the aim is to highlight the philosophical sources that from an aesthetic and psychoanalytic point of view, have warned for this paradoxical relationship between art and the horror and its consequent seduction ability. In the works of Aristotle, Schiller, Bataille, Deleuze, Kristeva and Arthur Danto, it’s possible to find an appreciation of the transfiguring power of art, which puts us in contact with certain realities that only through its mediation can bring fruition to the public. On the other hand, through the “aesthetic shock”, such transfiguring power of the art puts us in contact with the most philosophical and existential issues of life, including the issue of death, about which the human being is forced to inquire. That will lead also to the inquirer role that art plays in life. On the second part, the aim is to understand to what extent the abject art can be seductive and meet in the world of institutional arts a highly fertile ground. Abject art depicts what most people would rather not see. This kind of art breaks through all the established taboos in our society. The abject has a paradoxical effect on art: by being based on the underground side of civilization, it will seek in the unknown, in the instinctual, in the unclean, its true sense, a sense from which the human being has already unlinked. Perhaps this could explain the paradoxical and overwhelming success of artists such as Damien Hirst or the “Sensation” exhibition, which shuddered the structures of society and morality and had an unprecedented acceptance by the public. Whereon the third part, is intended to reflect on the purpose of some contemporary artists that use in fact corpses or corpses parts as artistic resources. Artists such as Witkin, Von Hagens, Teresa Margolles, each in its own way, are located in a taboo territory, that always seduced people. Despite the trivialization of death propagated by the media, such artists continue to make a terrible transgression to the social and religion customs of human communities, making their provocative and challenging artistic work, to be accompanied by a paradoxical, but guaranteed success.

Background Having as main theoretical references of this chapter, the work of Julia Kristeva (Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection) and Arthur Danto’s paper (Marcel Duchamp and the End of Taste: A Defense of Contemporary Art), is intended to show the relationship between art and horror, enhancing its seductive aspect particularly with regard to the representations of death. Avoiding any kind of ethical approach or questioning of the limits of the artistic production, is meant to highlight the work of some contemporary artists.

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MAIN FOCUS OF THE CHAPTER With unique and revolutionary artistic practices, abject art, which, among other issues, deals with the theme of death, constitutes a real vehicle to the philosophical reflection about existential issues. The Macabre representations in art exercise a fascination, attraction and curiosity that lead more to an acceptance than to a rejection (which at first glance would be more expected). The horror as an aesthetic category is a powerful mechanism for the human experience affecting all the senses, promoting and destroying concepts and affections in a paradoxically but very primal way. Art becomes the appropriate medium to represent what is present in the bottom of the being since immemorial times and that without the artistic discourse, would, for being such an uneasy territory, rather be silenced.

1. Horror and Abjection’s Theoretical Roots Since classical antiquity, the seduction caused by the horror has always produced two opposing types: 1. The Referens Horresco: Failure to mention the horror: disgust, and 2. The Morbid Delectatio: An attraction and an aesthetic pleasure at the Horror. This second type - the morbid delectatio - was already mentioned in the Poetics by Aristotle, the one that exposed the ability that art has to transmit a seduction and a pleasure by representing certain things that if seen “in the flesh” would be repugnant. In his words, a “sign of this is what happens in the experience: through mimesis we contemplate with pleasure the most accurate images of those same things that we look with disgust, for example, representations of wild animals and corpses.” (Aristotle, 1996, p. 107). The examples of Aristotle are enlightening and they reveal, precisely, our greatest fear. While the fierce animals jeopardize our survival, the contemplation of the corpse announces our death. Interestingly, it seems that Kant did not agree with Aristotle, as shown by the following passage of the Critique of the Aesthetic Judgment: “the Furies, diseases, the devastations of war. etc., while harmful things, can be described very beautifully, and even be represented in paintings; only one kind of ugliness, cannot be represented according to nature, without throwing away all the aesthetic pleasure. Therefore: the beauty of art: namely, the ugliness that arouses disgust.” (Kant, 1998, p. 217). For Kant, disgust destroys all aesthetic satisfaction. If one sees the purpose of art as the mere production of pleasure in the viewer, one can say ironically with Danto that “only the most perverse of artists would undertake to represent the disgusting, which cannot “in accordance with nature,” produce pleasure in normal viewers.” (Danto, 2010, p. 1). 114

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Regarding the representation of Christ’s suffering, for instance, Hegel will argue that an artist cannot represent Christ scourged according to the Greeks beauty standards (Hegel, 2004, 136- 137). Pursuant Hegel, this kind of artistic depiction leads to a spiritual beauty that reflects a much more profound inner freedom of spirit than the coldness of the classical beauty. Thus, the negativity, the barbarity and the deformation of the figure are required to art. Hegel takes this opportunity to praise the German masters of painting which not dodged to represent the most barbaric scenes of the passion of Christ. (Hegel cited inECO, 2007, p. 53) The Horror always exercised its power of seduction and so its presence in the art world is transversal. The Vanitas and Memento Mori (the lonely representation of the skull) or the Macabre Dances, dating back even to the fifteenth century, essentially broadcasted by the Flemish painting will find a strong proliferation after the Council of Trent. The preference for the macabre has been developed without exception, throughout Europe. Images that make the counterpoint between vanity and death, between the transience of beauty and the certainty of death, are in fact more than images: are embodied reflections bearing the illusion of youth and the evidence from certain death that everyone expects. This type of images, with an eminent moral message and ethical reproach, produces an “aesthetic shock” that may predispose its viewers to a philosophical point of view, a radical and genuine questioning of the value of life that breaks with the common sense. We can easily associate the fascination by the horror with the Abject Art, which has its roots a long way back in the History of Art. As was before said, the omnipresence of Vanitas and the Memento Mori constituted true ways of reflection through art. We can also identify a specific tendency in the European Christian religious that was frequently captivated by blood, martyrs and tortures and Catholic art was used as an instrument of threaten and used to depict terrible scenes of cruelty as a way of express piety and the vanity of our material life. It is important to remember that the recommendations of the Council of Trent to the artists were very clear: to display the agonies of the martyred, in order, through this display of affect, to elicit the sympathy of viewers and through that to strengthen their faith. But would those images pretend to be only a warning with a moral and philosophical concern? Don’t such images refer themselves to that secret pleasure and power about which Aristotle had already spoken? In a time when art was trapped in dogmas and stylistic and ideological barriers, one can argue that the depiction of death and horror, under the pretext of moralizing message, constitutes an aesthetic flight to this trespasser and lawbreaker pleasure. Since ever, the depressive and morbid iconography has instituted an essential legacy of painting, expressing in one hand the melancholic personalities of the artists and on the other hand the contact with the horror, with the night and the darkness, with the mysterious and with the cursed side. In effect, as an universal sense of boundary between life and death, a 115

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binding to primary, preceding the categorizations of logos, organizations and social and religious castrations, and by its intensity and transgressive freedom, the depressive and morbid iconography exercises its power of seduction. “I have seen some sculptures from Nuremberg from the late Gothic era, where a figure, which looks comely and strong from the front, is displayed in a state of wormy decay when seen from behind: the body is shown the way it would look decomposing in the grave. Such sights explain why we actually bury the dead. It is intended thus to be seen as revolting by normal viewers, and there can be no question of what is the intended function of showing bodily decay with the skill of a Nuremberg stone carver. It is not to give the viewer pleasure. It is, rather, to disgust the viewer, and in so doing, to act as a vanitas, reminding us through presentation that the flesh is corrupt, and its pleasures a distraction from our higher aspirations, namely to achieve everlasting blessedness and avoid eternal punishment.” (Danto, 2010, p. 3) Friedrich Schiller, in his essay About Pathetic included in the Sublime, 1801, where he deviates from Kant especially by the alliance he makes between the sublime’s theory to the theory of tragedy. He argues that the tragic is the most authentic form of sublime. About the tragic Schiller says that it is a general phenomenon of the human nature that the sadness, the terrible, exerts an attraction on us with an irresistible spell. (Schiller, 1997, p. 19) Schiller noticed that even for what is chilling, we feel repelled and attracted again with equal force by horror scenes. Schiller emphasized the importance of being the individual that observes the danger at a distance, not really as part of the danger. To Schiller the sublime object appears to be hostile and against the existence of the human being, challenging him to a ‘combat’ one cannot overcome. It would be with the German philosopher Karl Rosenkranz’s “Aesthetics of Ugliness” (published in 1853), that the Ugly and the repulsive will be seriously studied as a central issue of the aesthetics. Rosenkranz assumes that there is for sure an aesthetic experience of the ugly and also that art is producing ugliness, even though the real task of art would theoretical be to make beauty (Rosenkranz, 2015, p. 47). His position, in between Hegel and Kant, points out that the ugly relates to the formlessness, but also relates to other questionable and controversial aesthetic categories such as the vulgar, the repulsive, the caricatural, etc. Umberto Eco will retake this issue on his book: On Ugliness (2007). Here he surpasses a huge iconography of ugliness through the entire art history and philosophy of. The author argues how the depictions of the horror can be positively valued in a specific culture (for instance the Cyclopes). In the text “Das Unheimliche” (Freud, 1996, p. 238), that one could translate by uncanny, Freud proposes that the aesthetics should be taken as a theory of the qualities of feeling, and not just as the theory of beauty. Approaching the philosophical debate of the modern aesthetics about the perception and the beauty, Freud 116

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holds a particular point of view: some of the negative feelings that were considered marginal and unworthy of an aesthetic analysis, become an issue for the aesthetic debate beginning to aspire seriousness in art and western culture. And so what is so seductive and powerful about the paradoxical experience of the horror/ abjection? Georges Bataille defines abjection as, “The inability to assume with sufficient strength the imperative act of excluding abject things (and that act establishes the foundations of collective existence).” (Bataille, 1970, p. 217) The Kristeva’s conception of Abjection essentially developed in the Powers of Horror (1982), along with Georges Bataille’s concept of the informed became extremely influential in the art world. Such conceptions bring to collation the relationship between the theory of abjection and the art by proposing abjection and disgust as pre-symbolic structures inherent to the act of artistic creation. The concept of abjection means literally ‘the state of being cast off’. The abject extends to all the bodily functions, or aspects of the body that are considered impure by an increasingly sanitized society. Kristeva, in her book, begins by saying that the abjection is what “lies there, quite close, but it cannot be assimilated. It beseeches, worries, and fascinates desire, which, nevertheless, does not let itself be seduced. Apprehensive, desire turns aside; sickened, it rejects. A certainty protects it from the shameful—a certainty of which it is proud holds on to it. But simultaneously, just the same, that impetus, that spasm, that leap is drawn toward an elsewhere as tempting as it is condemned.”(1982, p. I) The Abject is a part of the natural anthropology or a kind of proto archeology of the human mind that is the object of a primal repression. The prime goal of Kristeva’s book is to demonstrate how the abject is at work in Freud’s psychoanalytic theory and in modern literature, for instance, in the writings of Louis-Ferdinand Celine, and its presence in religions, particularly Christianity. Abjection is “a physiological functioning that maintains the boundaries between mother and child before birth; a primary process that is fundamental to emergence of language and the development of the ego; a revulsion that serves to maintain the borders between the subject and that which threatens life: primal fear.” (Barret, 2011, p. 5) This is an ambiguous concept, as the mother is the first instance to be abjected, it domains life with mixed emotions of repulsion and attraction. That explains, in Estelle Barret’s opinion, “why children are fascinated by frightening stories and why some of us enjoy horror movies and gruesome images” (2011, p. 5). Through a psychoanalytic point of view, Kristeva identifies the mother and child’s relationship as the fountain of a first and forgotten struggle. In order to detach child from mother, the symbolic intervention of the father (law of the phallus), efforts to ensure the separation between them and to begin that process of emancipation: the mother must be abjected.

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The rules and the taboos were established in order to found the proper and clean way of living in the society. According to Kristeva, the goal of culture and logos discourse took place in order to separate the human from animal, as well as the male and female domains. She shows the abject as a manifestation of what more primitive exists in the human mind, as a primary and original type of ego, which had been repressed. Kristeva explains that abjection turns into a substitute of the sacred. She noticed that in the modern times, for instance, in the literature, one can feel how religion is becoming more divorced from art in general. But the truth question is not related with the presence of God, but with the way one deals with death. Kristeva reinterprets the Sublime in the light of the notion of Deleuze’s abjection. In effect, she highlights that abjection is an universal and primitive feeling that everyone has already experienced at least once in their lives, as an intense feeling of repulsion for the horror represented in intolerable things such as vomiting, feces, blood, and finally, what Kristeva associates with the peak of abjection, the corpse. The corpse is the ultimate site of the abject because it is here that all meaning to the unity falls. The unity of body and mind and the control of the boundary between inside and outside falls. “The corpse, seen without God and outside of science, is the utmost of abjection. It is death infecting life.” (Kristeva, 1982, p. 4) That experience can associate an unlawful and paradoxical feeling of pleasure and pain which Kristeva associates with the Lacanian’s concept of Juissance, i.e., a type of transgressive and offender pleasure related with the suffering. Pursuant this point of view, one can relate the abject to a double image, linking: life and death, disgust and delight, pleasure and refusal, Eros and Thanatos. There lies the ambiguous power of seduction of the abject. A great example of what it is above referred is Francis Bacon’s painting, for instance. In his visceral and carnivorous painting, Francis Bacon exposes the appeal of the abject in an evident way, and yet is not repulsion that his art causes, on the opposite: his work attracts crowds and has achieved market values never before attributed to a contemporary piece of art. Bacon has become one of our art obsessions because nowadays we want to register the cry, the visceral fear, the cold to the bone and our primitive scream of horror. Given the representation of the human, often as mere animal, Bacon puts the spectator in constant ambiguity between pleasure and pain, desire and disgust. This will be his artistic formula to predispose the public to experience much more than aesthetic enjoyment. Bacon’s painting launches the viewer in an aesthetic attitude of suspension, only allowed through an “aesthetic shock” that is felt like a vibrant intensity: “The abjection becomes splendor. The horror life becomes a pure and intense life” (Deleuze, 2003, p. 45).

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The redemption of the flesh and for the raw materiality present in art can lead the spectator to a state in which his physical or moral integrity is altered. The abject is the process, always in transit, which dominates the obscene instance of the object. That’s why the subject is drawn to it, instead of rejected, in a sort of “Seductive disgust”. (Salabert, 2009, p.339).

2. Abject Art and Its Seduction How can we relate abjection with art? Kristeva, for instance, focuses abjection, on the creative process, in the site of the production. Pursuant Estelle Barret, one can extend that perception to the site of reception “opening up possibilities for a different kind of critique related to audience response (...) in particular the way in which abjection gives rise to negative affect- fear, loathing and disgust.” (Barret, 2011, p. 5) Therefore, the term Abject Art is used to describe those artworks which explore themes that transgress and threaten our sense of cleanliness particularly referencing the body and bodily functions, that evoke a feeling of dirtiness and inappropriateness. “What is abject may vary from culture to culture but usually it is characterized by evacuation, eruption and dissolution- the leaking, peeling away, melting and accompanying stain, of a body’s (a system’s) insides moving to the outside. Abject art makes viewers uncomfortable, in part, because it threatens traditional or known order.” (Roth, 1997, p. 22) So, the Abject Art refers to works which contain abject materials and substances and break through societal taboos, especially those surrounding the materiality of the body and its fluids, sexuality and death. Abject art depicts what most people would rather not to see. Thus, the abject art practices should be understood as a symptom of our time, looking for a symbolic restructuring, intended to cause the return of the repressed instinctual nature. The Abject Art search for lost and desired territory: the body without guilt and flesh without spirit. The concreteness and immediacy towards the nature of eschatological and body as opposed to the impersonal abstraction in art or subjectivity and futility of beauty. The abject art can be an affirmation of the here and now, the real world, raw, without leakage, with no social theaters. Although the horror has always been present in art, the Abject Art is a complicated and nonconsensual territory. Jean Clair, for instance, questions: “How did we arrive at this stage in our history, this era of disgust? When did it all begin, and what models were used?” (Jean Clair, “The Muses Decomposed” cited in Danto, 2010, p. 4). Jean Claire accuses the contemporary art to be losing the taste causing disgust, taking advantage of the French language to create a play on words between goût (taste) and dégoût (disgust). The main critique pointed out by Jean Claire to the so called abject art is that it wants deliberately to cause sensations in the public, the kind of sensations that usually we avoid and do not wish to have. 119

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Pursuant Claire, this type of art is a mere form of perversion, that only a group of perverted people would appreciate. But we have to remember that to be repulsive cannot be seen as a negative feature, since repulse is precisely one of its structural conditions. As Danto notes, Claire’s position matches the one already expressed by Kant, mentioned above. Nevertheless, the position of Kant only makes sense in a time when one cannot even imagine what would be a work of art of this nature, and beauty and aesthetic fruition were the only and classic effective aesthetic criterion. Danto argues that this association between taste, beauty and pleasure, although constitutes a tendency of the philosophy of art, it is not demonstrative of artistic practices, not even the oldest. To evidence that, Danto invokes the example of Vanitas: “Heavily charged with excitation, they threaten to overwhelm the fragile barriers of the mind that contained them, and to swamp the immature, precarious self.” (Danto, 2010, p. 6) For Danto, Marcel Duchamp, with his revolutionary urinal, opened the way for a generation of artists who began using new materials to break new barriers, using art as a donation of any sense and not as a mere way of causing pleasure or enjoyment, so overcoming the tyranny of taste. In Danto’s words, “It does so once again because he opened forever the boundaries between art and life, and hence between art and the abject, as also part of life.” (Danto, 2010, p.7) Although the proliferation of scatological art practices can already be detected from 1960, some authors such as Hal Foster, argue that the beginning of abject art, particularly the “movement of shit” must be placed at the beginning of the decade of the nineties of the twenty century. (Foster, 2001, p. 165) Therefore, the abject art can arise as a reaction to a certain excessive emptying or institutionalization in art. Certain artists are looking to return through a psychic regression into a primitive state: “Artists have investigated the temporality, contingency and instability of the body, and have explored the notion that identity is ‘acted out’ within and beyond cultural boundaries, rather than being an inherent quality. They have explored the notion of consciousness, reaching to express the self that is invisible, formless and luminal. They have addressed issues of risk, fear, death, danger and sexuality, at times when the body has been most threatened by these things.” (Jones, 2003, p. 11) Thus the abject art can make use of parts of bodies, decaying matter, feces, blood, and other materials which somehow evoke a return to a primary bonding that the “well educated” public of art had forgotten. This idea is well synthesized in Eleanor Heartney words: “Urine, excrement, blood and semen have all been central elements in art works which have raised the hackles of the religious right. A discomfort with these over evidences of bodily processes is, in part, a lingering legacy of American Puritanism. It also conforms to the Cartesian tendency to see the body as mere machine which is animated by the injection of the mind or spirit.” (Heartney, 2004, p. 64) 120

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The abject is also situated in an ambiguous space which put into question the boundaries between the Self and the Other, as Julia Kristeva argues, but enhances its visceral side by representing excrementitiously fluids or materials (such as blood, milk or hair), represents the fragmentation of the body. It spreads a feeling that seeps in the entrails, namely the feeling of disgust or disturbing moored in the early days of the formation of subjectivity. The abject and disgusting has a paradoxical effect on art: by being based on the underground side of civilization, will seek in the unknown, in the unconscious, in the instinctual, in the unclean, its true sense, a sense from which the human being had already unlinked. The abject happens somewhere between fascination and repulsion. In some of Damien Hirst’s most famous works, for instance, one can find excellent examples. The artist uses corpses, or parts of corpses as artistic materials. Yet despite this obvious quality of abjection, the reactions that his finished pieces actually bring forth in a viewer are indeed far from repulsion. If one explores a small sample of his works, for instance, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, and For the Love of God, one can see how these pieces although taking off from abject matter, are extremely seductive and do not appear to cause any repulsion. The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living is a work that uses the corpse of an animal, a shark, and displays it in a huge glass tank. “‘The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living’ has become embedded in popular culture as one of the most iconic images of contemporary art. (…) The work consists of a thirteen-foot tiger shark preserved in a tank of formaldehyde, weighing a total of 23 tons. The shark is contained within a steel and glass vitrine three times longer than high and divided into three cubes.” (http:// www.damienhirst.com/the-physical-impossibility-of) The artist, regarding this iconic work, alludes to the most primal fears and notes that: “By isolating the shark from its natural habitat, with the formaldehyde providing an illusion of life, the work explores our greatest fears, and the difficulty involved in adequately trying to express them.” (Hirst, 2011, online) This work reminds the ancient passage from Aristotle, brought up for discussion at the beginning of this text. Does it really exist a secret pleasure in contemplating what in normal circumstances we might not be able to do? In this case, and as reiterated by Aristotle: the contemplation of the animal can be aesthetically pleasing and not repulsive because the artistic representation transfigures the presence of death. It is worth remembering that the aesthetic contemplation only happens because we are safe. We are aware that the shark will not jump out of the tank and attack us. Only with this condition assured one can move on to the aesthetic fruition. What happens in this case goes beyond what Aristotle could have guessed: the art doesn’t only mimic the ferocious animal, but rather makes use of the ferocious animal corpse. Still, what becomes clear in this analysis is that even using the shark’s corpse, the “sculpture” becomes 121

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extremely seductive for most visitors, and so, Aristotle was right: this kind of artistic contemplation can bring pleasure. One can say that Hirst, even messing with our most intimate fears, gives us a “clean” version of the abject matter. In the work For the Love of God, the artist goes even further, and uses the most emblematic part of the human corpse: the skull. In that sculpture Hirst has completely covered this authentic skull with diamonds. The art historian Rudi Fuchs, observed: “The skull is out of this world, celestial almost. It proclaims victory over decay. At the same time it represents death as something infinitely more relentless. Compared to the tearful sadness of a vanitas scene, the diamond skull is glory itself.” (Fuchs, 2007, online) Hirst combined the imagery of classic vanitas and memento mori with inspiration drawn from Aztec skulls. The process of idealization and aesthetification is quite evident. Even though the skull is authentic what is extraordinarily curious is that the brilliance of the diamonds can turn this vain and dark matter into a true object of desire. As the artist argues, “You don’t like it, so you disguise it or you decorate it to make it look like something bearable – to such an extent that it becomes something else.” (Damien Hirst cited in Burn: 2008, p. 21) What becomes clear is that actually the horror, far from being something that would want to ban, is something that carries an awesome power of seduction. For tinkering with our fears with our innermost thoughts, with the most unfathomable mysteries of human existence or our secret and shameful desires, one is led to feel a very special attraction for the art that makes, in a sense, the use of elements considered abject, and maybe that is the infallible recipe that makes the association between horror and its success. An excellent example of the attractiveness exerted by the abject art was the case of the contemporary art exhibition called “Sensation” which first took place at the Royal Academy of Art in London (1997) and later toured to Berlin and New York. Such exhibition, included, among many others, some works of the above mentioned artist Damien Hirst. The opening of Sensation caused media frenzy as never seen before, namely due to a range of controversial images, which led to a massive demand and desire to see what all the fuss was about. The public were apparently eager to be shocked or inspired by the “Sensation” exhibit, as the overwhelming number 3,000 visitors a day may explain! According to Martin Maloney, one of the he featured artists of the exhibition, ‘Sensation’ “substantially maps the contribution of those participants who have added to the diversity of what art is and what it can say … It has engaged and entertained an audience who find in it a reflection of their own pleasures, anxieties and phobias.” (Maloney, 1997, p. 34) To break taboos, to mess around with all the human senses, to question in a radical way, in short, the abject art is an invitation for reflection, or it can be said with Duchamp, that it is a way of doing philosophy through art. Because art has 122

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long surpassed the classical concept of beauty and the eighteenth-century concept of taste, the conclusion of the above cited Danto’s paper sounds brilliant: “As someone close to the scene, I am sometimes astonished by the goodness of artists in their dedication to the highest of moral principles and their unfailing respect for the human mind. The Muses should be proud.” (Danto, 2010, p. 17)

3. The Use of Corpse in Art and Its Fatal Seduction Going further than the mere representation of death, some artists use in fact the corpse as an artistic resource. The artist that currently works with the bodies/ corpses lifts a ban on contact, moreover founded in the unconscious desire to commit such a breach. Artists such as Witkin, Serrano, von Hagens, Teresa Margolles and others are located in a territory, that always seduced and exercised a fascination and despite the trivialization of death propagated by the media, continue to be cursed and avoided. The link between corpse, taboo and dirt as ways of abjection is well synthesized in Mary Douglas’s work Purity and Danger (1960), where she argues that “there is no such thing as dirt; no single item is dirty apart from a particular system of classification in which it does not fit.” (p. 208) This means that dirt is a displaced matter, i.e., dirt is a concept that disturbs the cleanliness (if the blood is out of the body, becomes dirt). This point of view is similar to the one of Kristeva’s that stands that the abjection is not the lack of cleanliness, but is what in fact disturbs the order, what not respect the borders. That’s why for Kristeva the corpse is the highest representation of the abject, which traumatically reminds us our own materiality. As the author demonstrates in Powers, the corpse, without fiction, without masks reveals what we try in vain to conceal in order to live: humans are at the border of their condition as living beings, potential corpse in decomposition. The human corpse means for us all death infecting life. We run away from anything that remembers our mortality, our materiality, including our own waste and trash as forbidden and shameful materials. Corpse is, what Kristeva calls, the ultimate dept to nature, the evidence of human’s materiality without any romanticism. Towards such difficulty in dealing with this kind of abjection and, at the same time, the seduction and the fascination that the horror evokes, art, science and entertainment industry have found very interesting ways to deal with that boundary between the repulsion and the attraction. One of the best and most successful examples is the work of Gunther von Hagens, which was the first to improve the technique of plastination capable of preserving corpses. “His travelling exhibition of plastinated corpses Bodyworlds has been shown in major international cities and has generated facsimiles such as The Amazing Human Body attracting thousands of visitors wherever they are staged. Ostensibly set up for morally instructive purposes, to “teach children about human physiology and help adults lead healthier lives.” 123

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(brochure of The Amazing Human Body, Zhang, Shu qin, 2006) The success and unbridled public demand for von Hagens’s exibithions cannot be ignored. In a certain way he recovers the spirit of science-spectacle, so fashionable in the European courts from the sixteenth until the eighteenth centuries. It is plausible to imagine that Vesalius’s and his De Humani Corporis Fabrica might have been a source of inspiration for Gunther von Hagens. The form of presentation resembles that of Vesalius’s and anatomists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a time of great revival of anatomical research, when the anatomical boards showed the nerve or muscle structure of human figures in elegant positions, having posed as background beautiful countryside of Padua and Florence. Vesalius’s says that while drawing the veins of the body, these drawings provoke him pleasure. The reason for this pleasure, clarifies José Gil may be: “Vesalius’s illustrations make it possible to set this object, to an extent that it turns off, thereby the real body.” (Gil, 1980, p. 125) The illustrations of Vesalius show living bodies, alive of Science, “by taking the dead its sacred powers, it is no longer regarded as a sign of corruption and end.” (Gil, 1980, p. 126). The body represented by Vesalius is stripped of all funeral and emotional charge. It is a neutral body like science imposes. In a certain way, the anatomist instead of just representing bodies like Vesalius, effectively uses corpses. His bodies are alive of Science, though indeed being dead. Such bodies possess an independent life, disconnected from the previous life. Such use of the bodies inaugurates an impersonal and scientific life of the corpse. The bodies plastinated turned into sculptures are no longer corpses, they are a sort of cyborgs, biomechanical entities, modified chemically and surgically. The intention is to show what has been practiced at medical schools since the sixteenth century, i.e., to teach the function of the parts in the specific system, display its usual diseases and expose the individual anatomical structures. “The exhibited corpses are not cushioned in coffins, looking life-like; rather they often resemble the enameled body models that have been manufactured for medical and anatomical purposes or the mummified remains, periodically unearthed, of people from an earlier age. The difference however is that we know that the plastinated bodies are in fact real bodies donated by ‘real’ people before their deaths (the sub-title of the exhibition reads –The Anatomical Display of Real Human Bodies).” (Muller, 2006) One can consider that von Hagens is trying to conceal the overwhelmed reality of the decaying body. Those bodies have been preserved by the technique of plastination, they don’t have any odor and they look like artistically sculpted bodies, without the abjection element that the contact with corps usually provides. Although visitors almost forget that they are looking at real corps, because of the vivid positions the corps adopt and their similitude to sculptures, the Bodyworlds website (http://www. bodyworlds.com/en/exhibitions/anatomy_everyone.html) states that the spectators

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are “gripped with a deeply moving fascination for what has been fixed in this novel way on the border between death and decomposition”. There are still other artists whose real intention is precisely the opposite of the anatomist, namely, to draw attention to the existential, funeral, morbid and macabre load of the corpse representation, which they hardly believe that could be overshadowed. With the purpose of revealing an aesthetic of the horror or with a purpose of social denunciation, those artists will find in horror, physical decomposition and material decay an undeniable and very attractive aesthetics. Unlike von Hagens and even preserving the anonymity of corpses, artists such as Andres Serrano (American photographer) and Teresa Margolles, (Mexican artist) tend to achieve an aesthetic of redemption in which an artistic representation or reliquial aura, seems to be able to return the dignity to anonymous and forgotten corpse at the morgue. Andres Serrano’s work includes images of morgue photographs and photographs of burned and fatally wounded people. The most relevant example is found in The Morgue (1992), as nothing was known about the bodies because the artist decided to hide their identities and partially covered all photographed faces. In most cases Serrano photographed victims of violent deaths. With such photographs, the artist, among other aspects, intended to note that the idea of death we have is somehow ideal. Many of us imagine that we will die more or less peacefully, but, as noted by the artist, in many cases death happens precisely as violence against the body. However, another aspect that Serrano intends to approach relates to the constructed and false idea that death is not a necessary character, as if it was a kind of external agent that might happen, an interesting question that Freud had also made note: “We always insist on the occasional character of death: accidents, diseases, infections, deep old age, revealing our tendency to strip the death of all character of necessity, to make it seems like an event purely accidental.” (Freud cited in Morin, 1970, p. 72) For Arasse more than a picture with forensic or scientific objectives, Serrano’s purpose is aesthetic because he constantly pursues the beauty of bodies, even where we thought there wasn’t. (Arasse, 1992, p. 64). Serrano photographed the bodies with a near classical beauty rarely associated with the corpses of the morgue. The chiaroscuro, the careful use of light, and the attention to detail and composition in each photograph resembles the marked contrast of Baroque painting and seems to link us to a particular and individuated history which dignifies each individual as a person. Each person is driven to think in a personal history and the images encourage the spectator to the inner contemplation and reflection about life and death. Serrano’s intention is still somehow ambiguous: if one can feel an emotional link to the photo, it is also possible to see an emotional restraint caused primarily by merely descriptive titles of each photograph, pointing out the cause of death (for instance, an impressive photo of a half covered face has the laconic and cold title “Blood Transfusion resulting in AIDS”. 125

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Joel Peter Witkin, an American photographer, born in 1939 in New York city, has become one of the most influential and outstanding photographers of the second half twentieth century. For pushing photographic representation to its limits through his depictions of all kinds of freaks, such as giants, persons with deformities, hermaphrodites and dead corpses (he often claims to see himself as loving the unloved, the damaged, the outcasts). Often harshly criticized in his home country, Joel Peter Witkin was well received in Europe where his work was understood as an invitation for reflection on the human weakness, on the boundaries of human life and upon the ultimate meaning of life and death. Witkin considers issues of morality as central to his work. Starting from a large frame of sources - literature, myth, and Renaissance and Baroque painting - Witkin creates in an ingenious way photographic tableaux that recall us to the macabre, to the mystic, to the erotic, and to the religious. We can foresee moral issues represented from the most bizarre images of human frailty with abundant art historical references, manipulated negatives and prints, Baroque staging and lighting. The American photographer also uses frequently dead bodies or body parts, that he deliberately handles in the creation of his work. Witkin’s most emblematic photos portraying corpses and body parts were performed in Mexico (where else could this artist get away with such a task legally?) using corpses from a hospital in Mexico City that let him sort through unclaimed, anonymous corpses and body parts picked up on the streets to use in his artworks. With a strong influence of Witkin, we can only emphasize the Mexican artist Teresa Margolles who reveals an artistic route of great consistency, evolving from an abject and aggressive aesthetics to a more conceptual artistic expression, a conducting wire arises: the identity of the corpse and reflection about death. The extent of her work is remarkable: from the underground exhibition unauthorized, reaches the most prestigious art institutions in the world, such as Tate (2006) and the Venice Biennale (2009). Her work is committed to violence in Mexico, her native country, and social issue that comes from the drug trafficking crimes. She reveals a dimension of art-denunciation that seemed to have ceased to dominate the agenda of contemporary art. The artist claimed the unidentified bodies in Mexican morgues and through the art restores their lost identity and dignity. Just like relics, her art works become sacred and the victims, once anonymous and forgotten by society, reach a kind of holiness and sacred aura. The use of the corpse, with forensic inspiration, is far from the hygienically and scientific intention of an artist like Gunther von Hagens. There is a nobility in death, but death is cursed, one can not show it without the justification of religion, a place that Margolles seems to claim for the for artistic territory. Her works, with clear metonymic and symbolic

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intention, makes use of fragments of corpses or objects that were in contact with the bodies, summoning the spirit of the holy relic to a yore violent and bloody scene. Her work exposes the silence of the victims in a blatant way and becomes a vehicle that addresses without taboos the dramatic and violent reality of murder, impunity and violence. The concentration of pain, that her art exposes, paves the way to a kind of an uncomfortable, but genuine anxiety (which we usually move away from our common sense) about death. This feeling that Margolles’s art promotes can be related to the Heidegger’s concept of “being-toward-death”. This philosopher argues that the authentic attitude towards death is “anxiety” (Heidegger, 1962, p. 310), a kind of courageous anxiety (which is truly different from the usual fear that constitutes the Dasein). This anxiety points out the freedom and the radical possibility of non- possibility. According to Heidegger, this mood will bring an “impassioned freedom towards death” (Heidegger, 1962, p. 311). Without morbidity or a religious expectation, this anxiety about death provides an awareness of human’s finitude. Heidegger’s point of view is that being-towards-death pulls Dasein out of its alienation on inauthentic everyday life and opens the possibility of coming authentically in contact with his own self, what is in fact exactly what some of this art works promote.

CONCLUSION The fact that humans are animals with awareness of their finitude, led them to create a range of behaviors regarding the death, between the sacred, the interdiction and the taboo. The art (as also the entertainment industry through movies, TV series and also video games) can provide a monitored and controlled way to be in touch with our greatest fears and mysteries, and yet, as Aristotle said, take some pleasure from this Horror’s contemplation. Although Kant argued that there is only one kind of ugliness that cannot be represented according to nature, without throwing away all the aesthetic pleasure: the ugliness that arouses disgust, a large part of the art depictions had always consisted in exposing some ugliness, suffering and death. This issue has always dominated the History of Art for centuries but some contemporary art practices are showing what Kant’s romantic conception couldn’t even imagine. Art occupies a central place in our ancestral connection with the horror. One can say with Kristeva that art constitutes an alternative and performative production of new knowledge, in alternative to the rationale science. (Kristeva, 2000) It is through its mediation, through its depictions (or its mimesis, as Aristotle would say), through the aesthetization, that we are led to represent and to find, those things that we could not stand “in the flesh”. 127

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The primordial and primal materiality of the human existence that death and the corpse announces (the ultimate level of abjection, as Kristeva reminds), began to be explored by art, at least, since the beginning of the sixties as the abject art demonstrates, when it started to rise a fascination with the degraded and defenseless human body, that always exerted a powerful and fatal seduction. That must be the reason why, for instance the morgue’s photographer Andres Serrano seeks to register beauty where no one would expect, in order to show what is generally avoided, and generally refused to see or think. It is through art, that what remained in the unconscious is brought to awareness: eschatology and vanity of the body, the horror of death and its social taboo.

REFERENCES Arasse, D. (1992). Andres Serrano. The Morgue. In Catalogue de l’exposition de la Seyne / Mer. Palais du Tau- Reims et Le Grand Hornu- Mons. Aristóteles. (1996). Poética. Lisboa: INCM. Barret, E. (2011). Kristeva Reframed, Interpreting Key Thinkers for the Arts. London: I.B. Tauris. Bataille, G. (1970). L’Abjection et les formes misérables, Essais de Sociologie, Oeuvres complètes (Vol. 2). Paris: Gallimard. Beyst, S. (2006). Joel-Peter Witkin, a saint in the morgue. Retrieved 20 Jul. 2015 from http://d-sites.net/english/witkin.htm#.Va0C4qRVikq Burn, G. (2008). Beautiful Inside My Head Forever. London: Sotheby’s. Danto, A. (2007). Marcel Duchamp and the End of Taste: A Defense of Contemporary Art. Retrieved from http://www.kim-cohen.com/artmusictheoryassets/artmusictheorytexts/Danto_Marcel%A0Duchamp%A0and%A0the%A0End%A0of%A0Taste.pdf Deleuze, G. (2003). Francis Bacon. London: Continuum Books. Douglas, M. (1960). Purity and Danger. London: Routledge. Eco, U. (2007). História do Feio. Lisboa: Difel. Eco, U. (2011). On Ugliness. New York: Rizzoli. Foster, H. (2001). El retorno de lo real. La vanguardia a finales de siglo. Madrid: Akal.

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Freud, S. (1996). O Estranho (1919): Vol. XVII. Edição Standard Brasileira das Obras Completas. Rio de Janeiro: Imago. Fuchs, R. (2007). Retrieved in 20 Jul. 2015 from http://www.wired.com/2011/01/ for-the-love-of-god-its-damien-hirst/ Heartney, E. (2004). Postmodern Heretics. New York: Midmarch Arts Press. Hegel. (2004). Philosophie der Kunst oder Ästhetik. Nach Hegel. Im Sommer 1826. Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag. Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and Time. New York: Harper and Row. Hirst, D. (2011). We’re Here for a Good Time, not a Long Time: Interview with Alastair Sooke. The Telegraph. Retrieved 15 July 2015, from http://www.telegraph. co.uk/culture/art/art-features/8245906/Damien-Hirst-Were-here-for-a-good-timenot-a-long-time.html Jones, A., & War, T. (2003). The Artist’s Body. New York: New Phaidon Press Inc. Kant, E. (1998). Crítica da Faculdade do Juízo. Lisboa: INCM. Kristeva, J. (1982). Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (L. S. Roudiez, Trans.). New York: Columbia UP. Kristeva, J. (2000). The Sense and Non-Sense of Revolt. New York: Columbia University Press. Maloney, M. (1997). Everyone a winner! Selected British art from the Saatchi Collection 1987-97. Royal Academy of Arts. Morin, E. (1970). L’Homme et la mort. Paris: Éditions du Seuil. Muller, V. (2006). Abject d’Art. M/C Journal, 9(5). Retrieved 05 Jun. 2015 from http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0610/04-muller.php Rosenkranz, L. (2015). Aesthetics of Ugliness: A Critical Edition. London, NY: Bloomsbury Publishing. Roth, C. (1997, February). Skin and Bone. Artweek, 28, 22. Salabert, P. (2009). El Cuerpo es el Sueño de la Razón y la Inspiracíon una serpiente enfurecida. Marcel.lí Antúnez Roca: Cara y contracara. Murcia: Editorial Cendeac. Schiller, F. (1997). Textos sobre o belo, o sublime e o trágico. Lisboa: INCM. Zhang, S. (2006). The Amazing Human Body: The Anatomical Display of Real Human Bodies. Academic Press. 129

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Chapter 7

Postmodern Cinema of Seduction:

Subaltern/Folk-Inspired Hindi Film Song and Dance, and the Art of Deferral and Play Reena Dube Indiana University of Pennsylvania, USA

ABSTRACT If there is one phrase that has been used most often by Western audiences for popular Indian cinema, it is the phrase “musicals.” The description gestures both at the fixation of Indian cinema on an earlier stage of cinematic evolution and the simple and uncomplicated pleasure derived by the audience from popular Hindi films that have an audience all over the world. This essay examines Hindi film “song and dance” spectacles as the art of deferment in the postmodern cinema of seduction, a notion derived from the work of Jean Baudrillard and the insights of Freud-Lacan-Zizek and Baudrillard himself on deferral and seduction. This chapter makes this claim not as an overarching theoretical nomenclature for all song and dance sequences in Hindi films. Instead the author argues for the primacy of the art of deferment and play in a postmodern cinema of seduction within the limited scope of her reading of a North Indian subaltern/folk-inspired song and dance Hindi film, Amol Palekar and Sandhya Gokhale directed Paheli (Riddle, 2005).

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-0525-9.ch007 Copyright ©2017, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

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INTRODUCTION If there is one phrase that has been used most often by Western audiences for popular Indian cinema, it is the phrase “musicals.” The description gestures both at the fixation of Indian cinema on an earlier stage of cinematic evolution (the 1940’s and 50’s by Western standards) and the simple and uncomplicated pleasure derived by the audience of the song and dance routines from popular Hindi films that have an audience all over the world.1 It is not only the ever expanding Indian diaspora, but a significant proportion of non-Indians who are fascinated by the exotic, larger than life qualities inherent in the song and dance routines in Hindi films. The lavish sets, production value, and extravagant costumes have inspired stars like Madonna, Shakira and Britney Spears to incorporate the Bollywood style of dance or music into their film soundtrack, songs, videos and stage shows. 2 Despite objections by commentators: they point to the fact that Hollywood musicals are about singing and dancing while in Hindi films the song and dance are a vital element of the narrative: the labeling of Hindi popular films that contain song and dance as musicals persists. 3 An interesting aspect of this appellation is that it is not only used by Hollywood actors when they express their desire to work in the world’s largest and most prolific film industry4, it is a preferred self-description of Indian filmmakers and audiences themselves, even when they refer to in a disparaging way!5 For instance one common opinion is that in Bollywood movies, people break into song, “often in picturesque far-flung locations, apropos of nothing – a style that may bemuse a Western audience, but one that helps to set Indian cinema apart” (Hundred Years of Indian Cinema, 2013). What is apparent is that this appellation is both a burden as well as a mark of distinction. Witness the comment of noted Jananpith awardwinning actor, director, playwright and ex-Chairman of the National Film Institute of India, Girish Karnad, who believes that Indian cinema has successfully warded off Hollywood’s invasion because of its song and dance tradition: If we would have made films like Satyajit Ray, continued without song and dance, we would have been swallowed up by Hollywood by now. Italian cinema is gone, Japanese cinema is gone, and even French can’t compete with Hollywood. We don’t have to worry. Our songs and dancers have protected us. So, why should we give up our strength? (Karnad, 2013).6 Karnad’s description of the song and dance as “protection” and “strength” of Indian cinema that has been a bulwark against absorption in the maw of global Hollywood is illustrative of a contemporary re-habilitation of the function of song and dance for/in Indian cinema. The re-estimation has led Lalitha Gopalan to look at this unnecessary intrusion, amongst others, as the hallmark of a post-colonial 131

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condition that marks a critical interruption in film theory and action genres by Bollywood cinema, which she calls “a cinema of interruptions” (Gopalan 2002, 9). The re-assessment inspires Sangita Gopal and Sujata Moorti to track the “many roots and routes of the Bollywood song-and-dance spectacle” as a global genre (Gopal & Moorti 2008). In this essay I examine the “song and dance” spectacles as the art of deferment in the postmodern cinema of seduction. I derive the notion of postmodern cinema of seduction from the work of Jean Baudrillard on cinema and the insights of Freud-Lacan-Zizek and Baudrillard himself on deferral and seduction, even though the latter’s relationship to formal psychoanalysis is ambivalent, his frame of reference is unmistakably psychoanalytic, especially in Seduction (1990) but also in his interviews.7 Much of Baudrillard’s prolific output has never escaped criticism and dismissal, it has never been ranked as highly as the triumvirate’s, and Seduction (1990) is no exception. Yet his analysis and treatment of the novel changes that mark contemporary social and cultural milieu is remarkable and not easily overlooked. Baudrillard’s theory of seduction spans the events that have transpired in the West since the emergence liberation movements, particularly the feminist movement in the 1960’s to the present. While Baudrillard clearly reads this liberation of sexuality, gender, sexual practices, and orientations from the traditional patriarchal conservatism, as a positive sign, he raises concerns about what the current status of sexuality, when all the arenas of culture are infected with its power to provoke, fascinate and arouse. By freeing sexuality from its boundaries of the past, sexuality, Baudrillard writes, “has become part of life, which means that it . . . no longer has transcendent value, neither as prohibition, nor as a principle of analysis, pleasure or transgression” (Baudrillard 1992, 92).8 For Baudrillard this heralds the new age of sexual uncertainty even as we mass produce and consume sophisticated, realistic images. Through Baudrillard’s theory of seduction I hope to augment contemporary psychoanalytic theorizing about spectatorship of Indian song and dance as more complicated than either the transparency model associated with classical representation, or the voyeuristic male gaze of classical Hollywood cinema popularized by Laura Mulvey in the 1980s. I make the case for a focus on the art of deferment and play exemplified in the song and dance of the postmodern cinema of seduction within the context of the argument that far from being a signpost of a stunted cinematic evolution, the song and dance dominated cinema of popular Hindi films is a highly evolved and elaborated grammer of seduction, the key to which is the psychological and philosophical and psychoanalytic notion of deferment and play. The psychological notion of “deferred gratification” refers to the ability to resist the temptation for an immediate reward and wait for a larger or more enduring reward later. The ability to delay gratification in a person is seen as linked to a host of positive outcomes, to do with psychological health, and social competence. Sigmund 132

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Freud viewed the struggle to delay gratification as a person’s efforts to overcome the instinctive, libidinal drive of the id (Freud 1932/1989, 357). When we read this notion of deferred gratification in the context of Derrida’s “différance”, as I argue subsequently, playing on both “to defer” and “to differ”, we begin to appreciate how song and dance routines are an art of deferment that belongs to the postmodern cinema of seduction.9 Baudrillard points out that “sexual gratification is truly the industrial usufruct of the body, and the opposite of all seduction” (Baudrillard 1990, 20). Sex is the “disenchanted form” of seduction, Seduction is a game, sex a function, “Seduction supposes a ritual order, sex and desire a natural order” (Baudrillard 1990, 21). Now we see how censorship and a culture of reticence work in tandem to cinematically articulate and elaborate a rich and complex vocabulary of the discourse of deferment and play in the postmodern cinema of seduction. I make this claim not as an overarching theoretical nomenclature for all song and dance sequences in Hindi films. Instead I argue for the primacy of the art of deferment and play in a postmodern cinema of seduction within the limited scope of my reading of a filmic exemplar of North Indian subaltern/folk-inspired song and dance based Hindi film, Amol Palekar and Sandhya Gokhale directed Paheli (Riddle, 2005). The film elaborates, I argue, some classic features of subaltern/ folk-inspired postmodern cinema of seduction because it is based on a medieval folktale about seduction.

SUBALTERN/FOLK INSPIRED FILM SONG AND DANCE AND THE DISAGGREGATED POPULAR NATIONAL CINEMA It has long been a commonplace that the plots and storylines in Indian popular movies are formulaic, repetitive and lack uniqueness; recent scholarship complicates this commonplace with the insight that there is no comparable modern musical form “including jazz,” from any part of the globe, “that can boast of such diversity, richness, subtlety and reach as the Hindi film song” (Chatterjee 1995, 51). Therefore the average Hindi film’s “originality,” and “creativity” is principally to be found in the music score, the songs and dances (Kabir 2001, 15). Further that the song and dance spectacles are the site for the film’s “encounter with historicity” (Gopal & Moorti 2008, 5).10 It is precisely this creativity, richness and historicity that comes to the forefront in analyses of the global genre of subaltern/folk-inspired song and dance sequences. Early Indian films derived their narratives and mise-en-scene from existing theatrical traditions, including Parsi theatre, which was a composite of the nineteenth century British melodrama; and folk forms such as nautanki and sangeetbari tamasha, Sanskrit drama, mythologies, and Urdu performance traditions. Unlike 133

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the sound film of any other land, the Indian sound film, from its very inception seized exclusively on musicdrama forms from the Golden Age of Sanskrit theatre, where the idea of drama was inseparably linked with song, dance and music. In so doing, film tapped into a 2000 year old tradition, but the linkage came at the cost of striking a mortal blow to rural subaltern/folk theatre performances in villages and small towns and the cultivation of a certain global cultural intransigence in Indian movies because of this emphasis on song and dance routines. This historic subaltern/folk lineage of the idiom of song and dance sequences in popular Indian films is reinforced by two related aspects peculiar to India tradition of expressiveness. One, Indian vocal expression is on a continuum which spans the range from “speech-dialogue-poetic recitation-intoned speech-song”, so that for the Indian cinema audience “the distance between registers of utterance—speech/ song—is narrower than in the West” (O’Beeman 1980).11 A related disaggregating feature of Indian films which contributes to the art of deferment and play in the song and dance sequences in popular Indian films, is the Indian culture of emotions where songs and dance are seen as the naturalized means of the expression of emotion. They are and have become naturalized through convention and tradition. Subaltern/ folk-inspired music and dance contributes a vital ingredient in the cultural reconstruct of emotion in Indian films.12 Furthermore music and spectacle are vital elements of the filmic experience and are only partially understood in terms of Hollywood musicals where the apparent disparity between narrative and spectacle is reconciled through the working out of the plot. This is not a feature of Indian films – the plot is not used to heal the split between narrative and spectacle. It is song and dance that accomplish this task. We may say that Indian cinema is the ‘other’ of Hollywood cinema in its mode of production, form, and audience address. Interestingly as the ‘other’ cinema it has, as Karnad notes, not only resisted being subsumed by the worldwide hegemony of Hollywood cinema, it has followed and rejected the Hollywood norms or standards in an arbitrary fashion: at times using it to create verisimilitude and at other times resisting and discarding it in favor of an episodic narration, stock comic situations and characters, lavish, elaborate sets and costumes, extended action sequences, special effects, song and dance sequences. These disaggregated features of the commercial Indian film: where the association between narrative, performance sequence and action spectacle is loosely structured in the fashion of “a cinema of attractions”: commentators have argued, make the cinema national in character.13 We might add that this also contributes to a cinema of seduction: where linear narrative, driven by characters and the logic of the narrative itself, and the realist illusion of the film narrative are deferred, displaced and dispersed into seductive spectacle of other ‘attractions’. Through this notion of deferral, displacement and dispersal song and dance in popular Indian films 134

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provide an insight into later Lacan’s view of the relationship between desire and fantasy. For Lacan desire a priori is inconsistent. It mostly thinks with a secret code in which the whole economy is to avoid the realization of desire, fantasy figures in the perpetual deferral rather than the satisfaction of desire (it is the representation of fulfillment and not fulfillment per se. Lacan puts it this way, “the fantasy is the support of desire it is not the object that is the support of desire” (Lacan 1979, 185). Which is why Lacan understood that fantasy is a realization of desire, not in the sense of getting what you desire, but in the sense of staging a scene where desire as such emerges—a pleasant, hopeful state of desire, on the verge of satisfaction but not yet there. There is a pleasant obstacle preventing it all the time. This is fantasy, according to Zizek reading the later Lacan. Therefore, the deferral, displacement, dispersal and play essential to sustain desire and fantasy in a postmodern cinema of seduction are provided by song and dance in Indian films. There is one other aspect peculiar to the Indian film industry which contributes to the disaggregating and seductive feature of national Indian cinema. This phenomenon is film censorship or film certification. The Board of Censors’ certificate precedes each film and informs the viewing audience of the kind of cuts that have been carried out in order that it be deemed fit for the viewing pleasure of the prescribed ideal audience. But as Gopalan astutely notes, censorship does not operate post facto; instead “film-makers spend considerable energy in incorporating censorship regulations during film-making” (Gopalan 2002, 20). It is this anticipatory tactic on the part of the film director duo of the film I examine in this essay, I suggest, that occasions the raiding of North Indian folk heritage for its linguistic and gestural riches of indirection, deferment, play in its metaphorical idioms of eroticism in order to create seduction on screen and thereby add to the highly evolved and elaborate grammar of song and dance sequences in the globally popular Indian cinema. However at the same time as they raid the subaltern folk storehouse, the style and techniques of song and dance sequences reflect the enormous influence in the camera movements and editing style of music videos from the US and music television like MTV.

CHALLENGING JEAN BAUDRILLARD: A POSTMODERN CINEMA OF SEDUCTION Given the disaggregating form of Indian national cinema, we are obliged to ask, how do we understand the deliberate refusal of narrative logic and continuity, violations of the unities of time and space on the one hand, and the incorporation of the latest available style and technique on the other? I suggest that one way to understand this disjunction is as the particular style of visuality developed in popular Indian cinema 135

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where spectacle, performativity, and music sutures huge linguistic and class differences among audiences. Thus whereas popular Hollywood films carry a huge burden of capital that has to be recovered if a film is to be declared a success, popular Indian films carry the burden of capital as well as the huge cultural burden of defining an identity, while negotiating with the structuring discourses of Indian films such as tradition versus modernity, rich versus poor, rural versus urban, regionalism versus globalism and the like. Further, the Indian national cinema generates an enlarged and standardized identity, by creating standard, universalizing reference points that can never exceed the limits of dominant address and must marginalize that which threatens to break open its universalizing ambition. One of the ways these troubled waters are negotiated by filmmakers is through interpellating and addressing the audiences in the song and dance sequences. Therefore, song and dance sequences work as a collective, social imaginary as well as personal fantasy in ways where irreconcilable and divisive differences are reconciled or co-exist simultaneously. In particular the subaltern/folk-inspired song and dance sequences directly address the viewers with a sense of immediacy and participation that is unique to popular Indian cinema. Ethnographic studies in cinema halls in India have shown that the audience returns again and again to view and to participate in popular song and dance segments. This is done by singing aloud and along with the songs, getting up and dancing in the aisles, commenting aloud on the aesthetic merits of the sequences and the quality of dance moves. Many reality shows on television in India are based on ordinary citizens with no talent for singing or dancing competing to perform to these songs. The Indian audience is highly critical, self-conscious, and discriminatory when it comes to the song and dance sequences. They compare sequences, performances, dance ability, lyrics and musical arrangement of the lyrics among and between themselves. Another way of understanding how the disaggregated features of the Indian national cinema can co-exist with a fascination for the latest technological refinement is, I suggest, as a postmodern cinema of seduction. Two formulations by Baudrillard warrant such a reading: in one Baudrillard specifies cinema as a postmodern variant of pre-modern forms, combining and reworking myth and communion (Baudrillard 1990, 7); on the other hand, he defines seduction in the following way: “Seduction, however, never belongs to the order of nature, but that of artifice – never to the order of energy, but that of signs and rituals” (Baudrillard 1990, 2). Therefore, the term “postmodern cinema of seduction” celebrates the link of cinema as image to premodern forms of ceremony and myth, of collectivity: “the cinema is . . . endowed with an intense imaginary –because it is an image. This is not simply to speak of film as a mere screen or visual form but as a myth” (Baudrillard 1990, 162).14

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In Seduction the mythic aspect of cinema lies in the collective celebration of pure artifice from which there is no awakening to the truth. Baudrillard conceptualizes cinema and its stars as cool, shimmering, artificial surface constructed as the end of signification where the signifier appears without the signified. It is cinema, he seems to suggest, has transformed signs and images into the artificial order of the pure image: the depthless, fascinating, celluloid surface. Baudrillard contrasts the surface appearance oriented seduction with the universe of production which rests on the concepts of exchange—goods for money, words for meanings—and accumulation—wealth, savings and full understanding. Seduction is the annulment of production, taking the linguistic form of “a radically different operation that absorbs rather than produces meaning” (Baudrillard 1990, 57; Constable, 2009, 212). Interestingly Baudrillard makes two references in Seduction to features of Indian culture as a culture of seduction: the first is explicit by way of a story about a naked Indian who rebuts when the white man asked him why he ran around naked: “For me, it is all face”. Baudrillard’s point is that Indian culture is “non-fetishistic” where nudity does not constitute objective truth, and there is “indistinction of face and body in a total culture of appearances” (Baudrillard 1990, 33). Behind this distinctiveness lies the opposition Baudrillard draws between the orders of production and seduction. The literal meaning of production, he points out, is not fabrication but to render visible or make appear: “Seduction removes something from the order of the visible, while production constructs everything in full view, be it an object, a number, or concept.” (Baudrillard 1990, 34). In the second instance, the reference is implicit in Baudrillard’s calling “absurd”, when speaking of “other cultures”, the habit of discounting the role of religion, economics, politics and law and “autonomize[ing] the sexual as a separate instance, an irreducible given, . . . to which other instances or givens can be reduced” (Baudrillard 1990, 38, italics mine). He points to the typical Western reaction of puzzlement and compassion when confronted by cultures for which the sexual act is not a finality in itself, cultures which observe lengthy procedures of enticement and sensuality, “with sex being but one service amongst others, and the act of love one possible end-term to a prescribed, ritualistic interchange” (Baudrillard 1990, 38). Both these elements contribute to the non-fetishistic nature of a cultures on matters of body and sex, ensure the play of seduction and therefore provide all the proof necessary, I argue, for a consideration of the deferral, displacement, dispersal and play achieved in Indian song and dance as a postmodern cinema of seduction. But Baudrillard makes a third significant move in Seduction, one that aligns the values of seduction to subalternity, a move that is crucial to my particular thesis concerning subaltern/folk-inspired song and dance constituting a cinema of seduction. He writes:

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As a model sex takes the form of an individual enterprise based on natural energy: . . . It is the selfsame form as capital, and this is why sexuality, desire and pleasure are subaltern values. When they first appeared, not so long ago, as a system of reference on the horizon of western culture, it was as fallen, residual values—the ideal of inferior classes, the bourgeoisie, then the petty bourgeoisie… It is true that in our culture the sexual has triumphed over seduction, and annexed it as a subaltern form. Our instrumental vision has inverted everything. For in the symbolic order seduction is primary, and sex appears only as an addendum. (Baudrillard 1990, 38-9, 41). Baudrillard’s analysis of seduction as subalternity in the quotation above begins with his comparison of the sexual with the economic, where the law that “capital must circulate, . . . value must radiate without respite” is realized in sexuality with the sexual model simply as its mode of appearance at the level of the body. This “individual enterprise” subalternizes sexuality, desire and pleasure. As depraved left over values proper to the lower classes. Thus the rendering of seduction as subaltern in the victory of sexual over seduction.15 Therefore I suggest that Baudrillard’s brief historical sketch concerning the subalternizing of seduction is incomplete without the postmodern addendum: where the postmodern cinema of seduction reaches back precisely to those fallen, residual but highly suggestive subaltern idioms of seduction, borrowing and reinvigorating their forgotten strategies and direct mode of address. This productive postmodern borrowing challenges both, the apparent difference of the signs and metaphors of the cinema of seduction as artifice and the postmodern cinema of spectacle. As importantly it questions Baudrillard’s theses about the nature of cinema and the linearity of its model of development: “The cinema and its trajectory: from the most fantastic or mythical to the realistic and the hyperrealistic.” (Baudrillard 1994, 46). Baudrillard himself questions the shift to realism as a proper second stage of the development as the attempt to capture “reality” is “the craziest of undertaking” since it results simply in its reconstruction as cinematic image . . . the very definition of the hyperreal” (Baudrillard 1994, 46-7; Constable 2014, 212-221). If film ushered a specific kind of modernity through visuality in colonial India, 16 then it seems that in the age of globalization song and dance sequences participate and encourage a certain kind of scopic voyeurism, expressivity and exhibitionism. The classic psychoanalytic understanding of the spectator’s voyeuristic impulse is that it is dependent on cinematic principles found in Hollywood – omniscient narration, continuity editing, internally coherent narrative, and the ideal spectator’s identification with the camera. However, Gopalan argues that voyeurism is not sustainable since “Overtly exhibitionistic” song and dance sequences “distract” from narrative flow and “contradict” continuity editing, “break[ing] the codes of 138

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realism on which psychoanalytic voyeurism relies” (Gopalan 2002, 10). In contradistinction I argue that song and dance sequences continue and add to the narrative flow by other means, and therefore the scopic voyeuristic drive is still maintained. Except that in globalism voyeurism in a highly visual medium shifts to expressivity and exhibitionism and these popular sequences map that shift.17 Add to this the fact that most popular Indian films are a combination of melodrama liberally intermixed with a style of realism developed specifically by Indian cinema where excess is the norm, and we have a postmodern cinema of seduction.18 In the cinema of seduction Baudrillard tells us, “nothing is latent”, there is no deep play of phantasies controlling the superficial play of signs; instead “everything is played out in the vertigo of this inversion, this transubstantiation of sex into signs that is the secret of all seduction” (Baudrillard 1990, 13). A final warrant for the category of a postmodern cinema of seduction is the issue of localism in globalism. Gopalan suggests that it is the resurgence and strengthening of regional cinema since 1979, which having robbed Hindi cinema of the burden of “national secular themes addressing the urban audience” is allowing the emergence of “regional stories resonating with preoccupations of the Hindi belt” (Gopalan 2002, 5-6).19 Thus if the foreign locales in the song and dance sequences “acknowledge a loyal audience abroad that wishes to see its own stories of migrations and displacement written into these films” (Gopalan 2002, 6); by the same token, for the viewers straddling between national identities makes the desire for the local flavor, the folk idiom as strong.

POSTMODERN CINEMA OF SEDUCTION AND A FOLKTALE ABOUT SEDUCTION: AMOL PALEKAR AND SANDHYA GOKHALE DIRECTED PAHELI (RIDDLE, 2005) Based on a short story called “Duvidha (Dilemma)” written by the folklorist from Rajasthan, Vijaya Dan Detha, the film Paheli (Riddle, 2005) exemplifies the phenomenon of seduction at the conceptual, narrative level and cinematic level. The official poster of the film in Figure 1 stresses the rural folk elements in the story while Figure 2, the less popular poster of the film, is more suggestive of the dilemma contained in the narrative. Just before Paheli was released, there was a great deal of interest in the project. It was the ultimate melting pot of the purely commercial, as represented by the superstar Shah Rukh Khan who was going to act as well as serve as producer of the film, Rani Mukherjee who by 2004, had established herself as a successful leading actress with roles in romantic comedies as well as achieved critical success by portraying a deaf, blind and mute woman in the acclaimed drama Black (2005), the 139

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Figure 1. The official most popular poster of the film Paheli (2005)

Figure 2. The rarer poster of the film Paheli (2005)

superstar of yesteryears, Amitabh Bachchan, and alternative cinema personified by Amol Palekar as director.20 Reactions ranged from accusations levelled at Amol Palekar for having “sold out” and Shah Rukh Khan’s desire to add a National Award to his kitty of popular awards, to a genuine interest in how the project would take shape. Post-release reactions were equally polarized. In fact, rarely has a mainstream commercial film garnered as many negative reactions as it did positive ones. The film was a box office average in India but garnered great critical acclaim and had a strong international release; it was screened at the Sundance Film Festival and was India’s submission for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 79th Academy Awards in 2005. Detha’s ostensibly simple folktale published in of the 1970s, with its multi-layered texture, has become a favorite for filmmakers: two veteran film directors - Mani Kaul (who made Duvidha in 1973) and T.S. Nagabharana (made Nagamandala in Kannada, in 1997) before Palekar-Gokhale remade it as Paheli in 2005. Interestingly Palekar who is reported to have spent 3 years on research for the film, scouting for locations in Rajasthan, characterizes the classic folk tale as “fresh” despite it being a re-telling:

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Tell me what cinema can be as fresh as this story. Vijay Dan Detha reinterpreted and retold the story. I am re-retelling that story. I don’t think there is any contradiction or ‘wrong’ in doing this. I am taking this lovely folktale and narrating this story to a maximum number of people. I am also taking it to a wider audience because I have superstars like Shah Rukh Khan, Rani Mukherji and Amitabh Bachchan. (Negi, 2005)21 Palekar’s comment gestures at the resonance of myth and folktales in a cinema of seduction by calling his re-telling “fresh”, “lovely” and “lovable”; discursively he may also be read as executing what Baudrillard calls “reversion”: a discursive strategy typical of seduction to which every structure is unable to adapt (unlike subversion and inversion): this is when seduction as “an ironic, alternative form,… breaks the referentiality of sex and provides a space, not of desire, but of play and defiance.” Therefore while power represents mastery of the real universe, seduction represents mastery over the symbolic universe (Baudrillard 1990, 21, 8). Palekar-Gokhale’s Paheli is an exemplar of a postmodern cinema of seduction in yet another way: the story enacts the classic opposition between the order of production and seduction: for if “masculine power is a power to produce” then the irresistible power of femininity is the “power of seduction” (Baudrillard 1990, 15). Lachchi (Rani Mukherji), is married to a man only interested in making money. A ghost (Shah Rukh Khan) falls madly in love with her. On the wedding night itself, the husband leaves home for five long years on account of his business. The ghost takes on the husband’s appearance and enters Lachchi’s life. “[I]n matters of sexuality,” Baudrillard tells us, “the reversible form prevails over the linear form, the excluded over the dominant, the seductive over the productive forms” (Baudrillard 1990, 17). In the case of Paheli, this reversibility appears when we see that while the ghost has been seduced into love by the beauty of Lachchi, it is not Lachchi, but the ghost as Kishan Lal who plays the role of the seducer. She is the seduced. This reversal (in Baudrillardian terms) of the masculine lover into the feminized position of the seducer has implications not only for the feminization of the figure of the ghost but for the disciplining of the radical uncertainty of actual, unknowable sexual impulses and practices of sexuality into masculine and feminine terms in a theory of seduction. When a few years later the husband returns home only to find his wife has given birth to a daughter, the villagers and relatives are bewildered. Palekar-Gokhale’s changed ending in the re-telling, pitching reality against fantasy, constitutes, I argue, the third dimension of the exemplar of a postmodern cinema of seduction.22 While in his novella Detha dwelt on the dilemma of an individual caught in a web of circumstances, where a decision is not easily made due to socio-cultural constraints, Palekar-Gokhale gave the narrative a challenging twist with the main female protagonist making a conscious choice to remain with the ghost whom she 141

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loves. In Detha’s original tale, the story ends on a less dramatic, more “realistic” note. A wise shepherd tricks the ghost into a bag that is thrown into a deep well and the real husband returns home in triumph. His wife silently picks up her household tasks again with tragic submission, for it is the ghost whom she loves. The film opens on a dark screen with the voice over of Amitabh Bachchan who says, “This is a very old love story of a woman whose name was Lachchi” – so from the very inaugural moment of the film it is made clear that this is a narrative about the woman character. The screen opens to an older woman opening a cupboard door, removing a box. The camera opens further to reveal a gathering of women at a pre-wedding function full of sexual joking and teasing between women–recalling Baudrillard’s formulation that the feminine has the power of seduction “interpreted in the terms of play, challenges, duels, the strategy of appearances – that is, the terms of seduction” (Baudrillard 1990, 15). “Why Grandmother,” asks one young woman’s voice, “when Lachchi wanted a local young buck or a tall dark and handsome househusband, did she get ready to go so far away?” Another replies, “When the coconut came from Navalgarh’s Bhanwar Seth’s (an honorary appellation for a rich man) for his son Kishan Lal, she had to change her mind and (in chorus) so she flipped!” In this way the exchange introduces the conflict between production and seduction and structures all cinema of seduction at the same time as it also announces, through the chorus, the central coda of woman’s choice that drives the narrative. In an interview Palekar made his cinematic preoccupation with the thematic of women’s freedom of choice explicit: Q: What drew you to Detha’s novel Duvidha? A: I’ve admired Detha. He’s among India’s most progressive writers. This story offers multifarious interpretations while retaining its core strength. What’s the story about? A: A woman’s right to choose—a recurring theme in my films. Q: Paheli has elaborate sets, six songs... A: Without them I’d be unfaithful to the story. If a situation can be best conveyed through a song, why should anyone have a problem with that? ( Kabra, 2005 ) Like his comment about the freshness of an oft re-told story, Palekar’s claim that fidelity to the folktale required the inclusion of six songs and elaborate sets, authorizes a reading of Paheli as belonging to a cinema of seduction. The ensuing exchange in the scene is again an occasion for introducing a coda related to the issue of a woman’s choice that runs throughout the film: instructing the young girl-bride on what to expect, how to behave: she must not remove her wedding veil, it will only be lifted by “him”. In response Lacchi the innocent, questions, “But if he forgets to lift the veil, goes off to sleep then?” And amidst the collective laughter a friend 142

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questions, “Who, your Kishan Kanhaiyya?” Thereby introducing the doubling of the name –as husband, and legendary god-lover. A second friend says, “Silly, on the wedding night neither does anyone sleep nor do they let the partner sleep!” The interchange outlines, in brief, the scope of the tragedy about to befall Lachchi on her wedding night. In under five minutes of the opening of the film, the man-woman director duo Amol Palekar and Sandhya Gokhale, have sketched the distance between desire and social compulsion for a young woman. And within the first three minutes of the film we have a song and dance, “Mannat kare”, (see Figure 3), a characteristic occurrence and feature of the opening moments in Hindi films.23 The performativity in these song and dance routines relate to the history of cinema diachronically as well as synchronically. At the present time song and dance form a continuous link to what has evolved into a very deep, rich, and prolific history and tradition of intertextuality and self–referentiality of popular Hindi films. Diachronically the routine connects the film to its theatrical past in Sanskrit drama where people were called to attention to the narrative by the song and dance that prefaced the telling of the tale. It also connects diachronically at the level of genre with traditional woman-centered ceremonial songs sung in the vernacular language and idiom at marriages celebrating women’s sexuality. In his famous essay “Différance” Derrida indicates that différance gestures at a number of heterogeneous features that govern the production of textual meaning: words and signs can never fully summon forth what they mean; only through appeal to additional words, from which they differ, synchronically (with all the other terms inside a structure), but also diachronically (with everything that was said and will Figure 3. Lachhi and her friends at the pre-wedding celebration singing and dancing, “Mannat kare”

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be said) can they be defined. Thus meaning is forever “deferred” or postponed; and by implication we understand how the discourse of song and dance, the discourse of seduction, proliferates, gains complexity, becomes intertextual. Différance also recalls that spacing is temporization, that detour and postponement are the means by which intuition, perception, consummation - the relationship to the present, to a being - are always deferred. Therefore, the speaking and viewing subject of the cinema of seduction is constituted only in being divided from itself, in becoming space, in temporizing, in deferral, displacement and dispersal. (Derrida 1982, 43).24 The whole openness that the song and dance routines offer, the node of creativity is a result of the fact that as a means of seduction the meaning is constantly different because it is deferred. The song known as “Mannat kare” begins with the lyrics: “Aadhi raat jab chand dhale aur koi na ho pichwade mein (When the moon sets at midnight with no one around)” is written by the famed lyricist and poet Gulzar, music composed by a music director from the South M. M. Kreem and choreographed by the top female choreographer in Bollywood, Farah Khan. The music and dance sequence is a deliberate throwback: the music, the film director tells us, to the melodies popular in “the early 70s and the 80s” (Negi 2005); while music director Kreem characterizes it as “Ninety per cent (of the music) is acoustic and not digital. It will sound modern without being modern” (Rajamani 2005). Similarly, the dance, instead of the “Bollywood style” the choreographer gained acclaim for, is traditional. In an interview she disclosed that she re-trained herself for the classical dance and music used in Paheli.25 Therefore as a group dance it once again diachronically connects to the history of dance in Hindi movies where the idea of large groups of dancers dates from the 1950’s and 60’s and tells of the influence of folk dances. While most group dances in globalism deliberately mess up the gendering in order to give it an “edgy” feel: that is when the main dancer is the male, he will be shown with a large group of female dancers (mostly blond-haired foreign dancers) and when the main dancer is female, she will be accompanied by a large group of all male dancers. But this particular song and dance, once again follows the traditional gender grouping of women. We have to ask, what is the purpose of this overload of the traditional idiom at each level on this song and dance sequence in Paheli? At one level the answer is that through this overload the song activates a diachronic and synchronic network of similar film situations and film songs. At a more important level the surplus of nostalgia in terms of music and dance and generic referentiality to the history of film announces the sequence as an overburdened ideological instance where the young girl in a traditional patriarchal, son-preferring, daughter-devaluing culture specific to Rajasthan is instructed on the expectations of her in the natal and married family after marriage. Immediately at least two comparable songs come to mind: one from 144

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the movie Saraswatichandra (1968) based on a Gujarati novel set in 19th-century feudal India that won the National Film Award in the Best Music Director category, “Main toh chood chali Babul ka desh, piya ka ghar pyaara lage (I am leaving father’s country, I love my beloved’s house)” (Saraswatichandra, 1968). The second is from Raj Kapoor directed Prem Rog (1982), “Yeh galiyan yeh chaubara, yahaan aana na dobarra (These streets and crossroads, don’t come here again)”. Genre expectations are fulfilled in both songs when the young girl cheerfully embraces her estrangement from her father’s country for an unknown stranger’s (her husband-to-be) home. But the director duo reverse the linearity of the narrative by introducing in place of the generic expectations the subject of a young girl’s erotic longing and romantic expectations about the wedding night. The song instructs the bride-to-be about how to act hard to get, to resist the blandishments of the groom on the wedding night. In the middle of the song, Lacchhi sings, “Ja na daal paheli, barson ke baad saheli, jagne ki raat aay hai, dekha karti thi sapna,, sapne ko aakhir apnaa kahene ki raat aayi hai (Go, go, don’t puzzle me, after years my friend, the night to keep awake has come, I use to dream, the night to own the dream has come.” In this way Palekar-Gokhale’s re-naming and reconceptualization of the film is incorporated into the song, not as a predicament (the original title Duvidha/Dilemma/In Two Minds given by Detha and retained in a previous film version by Mani Kaul [1973])26 but as a mystery (Paheli/Riddle) with its resonance to the discursive history of woman as mystery and riddle. The indigenous idiom in which the song articulates the erotic longing and desire of the young woman ends with Lachchi advising her friend not to be envious of the marriage rituals for another from afar, but to marry and join the fray. This counsel moves the song from an ideological direction into a democratic direction of an invitation to experience desire and pleasure for herself. The song does not end there; it changes in mood and in this way becomes an example not only of how song and dance advances the narrative (as Dudrah argues), but suspends the narrative proper in order to allow narrative performativity to take over. It is this that generates spectatorial desire and engagement differently from other cinematic cultures, song and dance sequences produce romantic, erotic and communitarian affects and the mobilization of space, movement, and bodies create this particular address of this cinema. In addition, since the songs and dances quote earlier songs and dances they thicken and enrich the audiences’ viewing experience. Through longing, joy, celebration, the musical interlude telescopes the wedding rituals to sadness and sorrow at the impending departure of the bride. Thus all the emotions are given time to be performed, elaborated in lyrics, musical notes and gestural movement by the artists. The song seamlessly moves from mischievous celebration to sadness and evocation of other film bidaai geet or leave-taking songs in the viewer’s imagination: songs and word images from films the lyricist Gulzar himself has been 145

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associated with: especially his first film Bandini (1963). But the song “Ab ke baras bhej bhaiyya ko babul (This year send brother father)” is one that is not penned by him, but the other master of the indigenous Hindi-speaking idiom, the lyricist Shailandra. Seduction never works with perfection; a seduction, in order to be successful, Slavoj Zizek, tells us, has to imply a moment of impotence and failure, an acknowledgement of limitations. The disembodied ghost in Paheli is the very epitome of failure. It is this failure, I suggest that puts him in a feminized position of seducer in contrast to the masculine position occupied by the real Kishan Lal, who leaves Lacchi for business. Further, Zizek notes, there is no seduction which is not in a way an “incorrect” intrusion or harassment (Summers and Graeber 2013). In the film, the ghost must use devious means of magic to trick Lachchi, the family, and the community at large. Rukh becomes a shapeshifting mischievous sprite ghost smitten by Lachchi when the marriage party stops at the haunted haveli (estate house) near the banyan tree that he inhabits. Intrusion or harassment appears first at the curiosity of the young boy to see the face of the bride beneath the veil, to the moment when the ghost espies Lachchi and tries to woo her by entering the bodies of passing raven, squirrel and singing bluebird, even teasing her with a glimpse of his wet footprints. But Lachchi is frightened rather than intrigued and runs away, leaving the heartbroken disembodied ghost to talk to his friends, a pair of Rajasthani puppets, voiced over by the actors Naseeruddin and Ratna Pathak Shah. The thread of desire and seduction and its frustration continues to string the narrative from then on: Lachchi’s journey to her new marital home is interrupted when she desires sour berries growing on the wayside. The wedding night scene lays bare the central conflict between production/ seduction when Kishan refuses to “lift Lachchi’s veil”, in effect refuses to consummate the marriage, telling her to go to sleep alone in the marriage bed while he finishes up his accounting of the marriage expenses since he will be leaving early next morning for business for five years. At her bursting into tears (see Figure 4), he remains unmoved saying, “Mother is right in saying for one night why awaken the passions of the body?” The second song of the film, “Dheere jalna, zindagi ki lau pe jalna (Burn slowly, on the flame of life)” written by Gulzar and composed by M. M. Kreem, is a song sung by the male playback singer Sonu Nigam, expresses the desire of the ghost as he enters Kishan Lal’s home in the guise of Kishan Lal. It is a song that is not lip-synched, but plays on the soundtrack during which the embodied ghost experiences Kishan Lal’s life –he is the recipient of the mother’s love, looks around at the beautiful haveli, experiences the sensuous pleasure of a bath and participates in his niece and nephew’s play. Lachchi does not appear in the whole song. Only at the end her veil drifts from above over his head, as if swept by the breeze. The song

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Figure 4. Lachhi in tears on her wedding night

is in turns slow, seductive, reflective, sung in the lower octave, and then in a higher octave with drums.27 The sentiments expressed in the song presage the conversation in the following scene between the ghost who expresses his desire frankly and truthfully to Lachchi and she is asked to make a choice. On being told that it is the ghost in the guise of her husband, not her husband Kishan Lal who has returned home. Lachchi runs away, distraught. On the audio track we hear her thoughts rendered musically in a snatch of song. Lachchi tells the ghost, “Till today nobody ever asked me my wish. And you happen to ask it today. How difficult it is to answer, do you know? Of my own wish, you are asking me to be another’s.” When the ghost declares that he has no intention of hurting her and would leave rather than give her pain, she reaches out and clasps his arm, saying, “Couldn’t stop the one who was leaving, how can I stop the one who is coming?” Note that Lachchi’s expresses her decision to take the ghost as her lover, within the discursive idiom of her lack of will/choice. The ghost lets out an audible sigh of relief and the soundtrack fills with the female version of “Dheere jalna”. Despite the ghosts’ “incorrect” intrusion yet again into Lachchi’s home, to use Zizek’s words, Palekar and Gokhale’s feminist leanings makes his stay dependent on Lachchi’s choice. But this is only the first, if most crucial level of permission that must be granted to the ghost, and by extension to Lachchi’s desire, for it to have any legitimacy and existence. In understanding this the director duo’s script reveals that their brand of feminism is a culturally nuanced indigenous feminism which recognizes that individual choice can only be sustained when all the differ147

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ent levels of legitimacy--the familial, communitarian as well as state—have been granted. Therefore, the continued presence and acceptance of the ghost as Kishan Lal in the home is not just dependent on Lachchi’s desire, but the permission of the household members which cannot be mediated by Lachchi. He must interact with them himself and use his wish granting powers (five gold coins per day for the father and winning of the camel race for the brother) to satisfy their desires. That is why, when it becomes known that the family has been living not with their son, but the ghost as Kishan Lal, both the mother-in-law and the sister-in-law do not accuse Lachchi of infidelity, the former going so far as saying if we did not recognize our own son, how can you be blamed for being taken in by the ghost. The third level of legitimacy can only be granted by the community, for whom the ghost Kishan Lal funds the communitarian effort of building a baodi (water source) in the waterparched desert town. The last source of legitimacy must be granted by the state, the villagers are on their way to the king to seek his ruling when they are waylaid by an old goat herder (Amitabh Bachchan in a memorable cameo).28 He insists on solving the riddle by challenging the real Kishan Lal to prove himself by entering the leather water carrying pouch. Wisely the ghost resists and the human (real?) Kishan Lal enters the pouch only to be captured in it and thrown into a well by the goat herder. Lachchi is renunited with her lover and their female child.29 Lachchi’s decision is greeted by the ghost Kishan Lal with audible relief. As the song “Dhere jalna” swells on the audio track and we see a mid-shot of the two figures in silhouette as they draw close, and the camera draws closer as they draw close. Cut to an overhead close up of Lachchi’s upturned face, eyes closed, brow furrowed in an intensity of pleasure, almost as if in pain, while the lyrics, “kaanch ka sapna, gull he na jaaye, soch samajh kar aanche pe rakhana (the fragile glass dream may not melt, think carefully before putting it on the fire)”. In this context the fragile glass like dream of the ghost is a euphemism for the wedding night with the young virgin bride. The cinematography of the song is subtle: it closes up frequently on Lachchi’s face as with eyes closed (see Figure 5) she registers her intense pleasure at the ghost’s touch, but it maintains a mid-distance from the lovers themselves who do not look into the camera, nor does the camera traverse their bodies. For instance, one overhead close up of Lachchi’s face is positioned from behind, with her eyes closed turning this way and that in ecstasy; cut to Kishan caressing her bare back above her blouse. As his hand slides down her back, out of frame, he bends his head in a gesture of kissing her back, the camera cuts away to a reverse shot in which we once again see the excess of feeling on Lachchi’s face as Kishan’s face rises from behind her back to nuzzle her cheek while the sound of the shehnai (an instrument customarily played in weddings) fills the soundtrack, underscoring that for Lachchi this is her long awaited wedding night. Camera pulls away and we see her turn in Kishan’s arms as sudden rain drenches them on the terrace. 148

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Figure 5. A rain drenched Lachhi and ghost Kishen Lal come together on the terrace to the strains of the song “Dhire jalna”

The song ends with the lovers in an embrace, sinking down to the ground to the strains of the shehnai. The camera’s focus on the expressions of intense pleasure on Lachchi’s face as eyes closed, she experiences the caresses, the shehnai, the rains in Rajasthan, a desert state, the terrace –all contribute at the level of sound, music, gestural movement and visuality to eroticize the situation. These elements are underscored in the scene that follows as the couple wake up from sleep in the early dawn on the terrace (see Figure 6) and subsequently in their talk as well as the exchange between Kishan and an uncle who asks why sounds of fireworks were coming from the terrace last night. Figure 6. The lovers the morning after

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CINEMA OF SEDUCTION: TOWARDS A THEORY OF SPECTATORSHIP Raja Sen, a premier Indian film critic had high praise for the film, “Paheli is a breathtaking dream” (Sen 2005).30 Another comment by a blogger draws the same comparison to a dream: “it is a fantasy film made to enjoy like you are in a slow dream and just enjoying the cinematography, the costumes, the music, the performances” (Warrier 2014). The referent in the dreamlike quality of the film is of course to the sumptuous visuality of the film; Sen writes: “this is the best-looking Indian film in a very long time, and ranks up there with the finest ever…The colours are vivid, unrelenting and addictively rich. . . we are witnessing a dream. Real life…never looked this good” (Warrier 2014). Sen’s phrases describing the visual experience of the film: Ravi K Chandran’s “spellbinding” cinematography of the “fabulous sandscapes of Rajasthan” where each frame of the film is “picture-perfect, marinated in intoxicating colour” of yellow and orange, “sheer magical palette” (Sen 2005): makes reality hyperreal. As pure image, cinema “is blessed…with an intense imaginary “, Baudrillard writes, its mythic qualities ensure that it retains “something of the double, of the phantasm, of the mirror, of the dream” (Baudrillard 1994, 51). At stake here is the issue of distance, a gulf between the productive order of signs, signifiers and signifieds and the seductive order of pure images. As our phantasm/ reflection/dream, the cinematic image offers us a separate double that is both ourselves and not ourselves, setting up a space for the play of the imaginary across the different orders. The hyperreal visuality of Paheli as part of the postmodern cinema of seduction offers a dialectical play between image and reality, a seductive play of the surface that annuls the production of depth. Sen observes the “great” chemistry between the two characters played by Rani and Rukh in his review: It’s warm and sensual, aggressive yet innocent. This is probably best credited to Rani…When she nuzzles playfully into the side of Rukh’s face, the magical romance this film is meant to be throbs, hard and content. No one in the industry does a love story quite as well as Rukh, and here too he is perfect, drawing Rani in with a smouldering combination of intensity and restraint… (Sen 2005) Sen’s detailed description of the “chemistry” is a very unusual occurrence in the genre of Hindi film reviews. Although the lack of so-called chemistry between the screen lovers would certainly draw attention and good chemistry commented on, it is a very rare to see such a detailed description of gestures of intimacy as well as the reviewer’s reaction to them. Here it is important to recall Richard Dwyer’s suggestion that these picturizations code the inexpressible and the transgressive and Gopal and Moorti’s perception that, “Far from being an additional element of 150

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entertainment on offer, music is the central axis along which desire and identification are caliberated” (Gopal & Moorti 2008, 5). Thus the commonplace that Hindi films are by and large in the “melodramatic mode” (Vasudevan 1989, 356) must be supplemented with the insight that music is critical to this mode as Brooks writes, because of “its evocation of the ‘ineffable’” affirming “the inexorability and necessity that in pre-modern literature derived from the substratum of myth” (Brooks 1991, 60). Note that all the conceptual functions mentioned by the commentators above concerning music and dance: expressing the inexpressible, the transgressive, desire, identification, the ineffable: all are audience-centered concepts and emanate from the viewer, the spectator, underlining the importance of the audience instead of the text or the creator/producer in the meaning-making of a cultural product. It is not necessary to examine in detail the four other songs (three of which are song and dance) in the film in order to support my reading of Paheli as belonging to a cinema of seduction. Suffice it to say that three of the four other song and dances in the films (one is solitary background song, “Khaali hai tere bina (Empty without you)” picturized on the real lonely Kishan Lal character) are almost textbook examples of folk-based Hindi film song and dance not least because they involve the whole community and are group song and dance. In the first of these, “Kangana Re” the central motif is a sound peculiar only to traditional Indian feminine garb: the teasing, erotic emotions evoked by the jingling sound of the glass bangles worn around a girl’s wrist. The jingling of bangles suggests laughter, cheer, fun, happiness, love, anticipation. The song is linked through its mood with “Minnat kare” the first wedding song, except that in this one unlike the earlier sequence, the male lover is present instead of being absent, and a participant in the song and dance making of it therefore an erotic love duet. The fourth song, “Laaga re jal laaga” is occasioned by a culture specific situation and this is reflected in both the lyrics and the dance. A celebratory group song, it celebrates and thereby equates the fecundity of the Earth and the woman—the digging of a baodi (a water source) in the water-starved desert environs of the Rajasthani village under the aegis of the ghost as Kishan Lal, and the news that Lachchi is with child. The last song and dance in the film, “Phir raat kati aur din niklaa (Again the night passes and daybreak approaches)” comes at the end of the film as the credits roll on screen. This song and dance in style is appropriately an appropriation of a puppet show with Shah and Rani dressed up as traditional Rajasthan puppets dancing a puppet dance (see Figure 7), telling the tale of Lachchi and Kishan Lal as an oft-told immortal love story folktale of the desert state (memorialized in the poster of the film in Figure 8). It is worth noting that film critic Sen’s otherwise glowing review of Paheli, does not extend to its music. In fact in his words we encounter once again the same stereotypical comments about song and dance in Hindi film:

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Figure 7. The final puppet song and dance, “Phir raat dhali aur din nikala” as the credits roll with Lachhi and Kishen Lal the ghost

Figure 8. The visual of the film poster that commemorates the song

The music in the film is great, sure, but there’s too much of it. The first half of the film is laden with songs, and this slows the already languorous pace of the film to a trickle. Palekar’s fairytale is obviously a film enjoying itself, the screenplay concentrating on pleasure rather than tautness. Still, the songs hamper the narrative, and the music, while perfectly acceptable by itself, just isn’t compelling enough to keep you riveted to the screen. And it doesn’t help that the best song in the film plays during the closing credits. The lazy song moments, however, are made tolerable by the fact that the film is more than easy on the eye. It’s a leisurely told and naïve dream…It’s a charming, warm romance capable of gifting the most sceptical of us a big, beaming smile. (Sen 2005) 152

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What is instructive about Sen’s comments is to see how song and dance continue to appear as a source of intransigence for the Western educated informed native audience. Sen uses the same stock phrases to articulate his dislike of the music: although “great” the music is “too much, “laden”, which “slows” and interferes with the “tautness” and “hamper[s] the narrative”, and constitutes in fact “lazy song moments”. He sees no connection between the music and the film’s “leisurely told”, “languorous[ly] pace[d]” dreamscape where “pleasure” is the objective, and “charming, warm romance” the achievement. He prophesizes at the end of his review, “It might not be a huge commercial hit, in fact, I doubt it will,” with the proviso, “but I’m going to revisit Paheli in theatres as often as I can afford.” He proved to be right. The film, although critically acclaimed in India, and nominated as India’s official entry to the 79th Academy Awards in 2005, was declared an “average” film in India but a “Hit” abroad. The film had a total net gross of ₹187.5 million (US$2.9 million) in India and an additional US$3.63 million in the overseas market (Planet Bollywood 2005). Gopal and Moorti note that, “Hindi film’s success in these sites (Africa, Arab states, Trinindad, Guyana, Barbados, Burma, Hong King, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, and Thailand)” in the 1970s “underscores the resonance that this cinema has in “transitional societies” where “modernity competes with tradition, where urban and rural commingle in uneasy proximity, where underdevelopment meets development” (Gopal and Moorti 2008, 28). Therefore, Palekar-Gokhale’s Paheli on the issue of acceptance of woman’s desire and woman’s choice would seem to be an issue that is resonant for a traditional society or “transitional societies” (Vasudevan, 2000). But we find that Paheli earned more in the developed societies as it did in the transitional society of India. One clue to the reason for this phenomenon is provided by Narmala Halstead who notes how the song-dance sequence mediates courtship rituals among the young in Guyanese East India diaspora. Sen’s review of Paheli ends with the idea that in the film Palekar has brought alive a fairytale, the popular graphic novels known as “Amar Chitra Katha”, and therefore qualifies as appropriate viewing for children: Children will love it, and the affection involved in the film’s creation is infectiously visible to the audience. And the twist at the end raises astonishingly dark questions about fairytale metaphors, and sends you home thinking. Smiling, but thinking… As for Amol Palekar: He’s brought Amar Chitra Katha marvellously alive, and for that I remain eternally grateful. (Sen 2005) Sen’s remarks above recommending the movie for child-viewing are at odds with his description of the smouldering sensuality and chemistry in the lovemaking between Rukh and Rani. One way to reconcile the inconsistency is to view it as constituting 153

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the disaggregated feature of Indian cinema where the threat of censorship ensures that the romance is “aggressive” but “innocent”; yet another way to understand the disjunction is through the lens of reversibility in a postmodern cinema of seduction where the male lover is a feminized figure. All reversibility is not seduction, Baudrillard tells us, and reversibility in seduction is annulment of production which also marks the beginning of a different order, a way of accessing the outside or creating an alternative. Cinematically the play of magic and narratively the changed ending of the film creates a revolution that allows us a glimpse into an alternative outside. For example, in the allegory are the ghost and the husband two sides of the same individual? So that, in the end, they complete each other? Or should we look at it as Lachchi being able to exercise her choice only through a ghost? If Paheli is a feminist fable, it is not in the usual sense of the word. This is a film where women seek, and make choices that allow them to live their lives within the constraints of their own traditional society. Cinema plays a crucial role in ushering in the postmodern which turns on the destruction of history and thus of myth, therefore a particular quality of narrative, and the turning of myth into simulation (Baudrillard, 1990). The move away from the modern as the result of the rise of new technologies and the concomitant fascination with technical and technological perfection means there is no room for errors, psychology or play of the imaginary and/or imagination. For Baudrillard the great technical advancements in postmodern cinema had created “a racket on images… spectacular demonstration” but “there is no magic in it except, well a mechanical magic…there are only superb demonstrations; its performance, that is all” (Gaines, 1993, 23). Even on these grounds, I conclude, that as an exemplar of the art of deferment and play in the postmodern cinema of seduction, Paheli successfully straddles the fine line between spectacle and seduction: its cinematography is spectacular, and it uses the latest CGI technology to envision for instance the shape-shifting ghost and his magical tricks, nevertheless it reaffirm and reinstates the old narrative structure of the subaltern/folk-tale by what else, but the penultimate song dance in the film.

REFERENCES Bachchan, A. (2015). Retrieved from http://www.india.com/showbiz/amitabhbachchan-marks-10-years-of-shah-rukh-khan-starrer-paheli-on-twitter-435894/ Balázs, B. (1952). Theory of the Film. London: Denis Dobson. Baudrillard, J. (1981/1994). Simulacra and Simulation. University of Michigan Press. Baudrillard, J. (1990/2001). Seduction. Montreal: New World Perspectives. 154

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Baudrillard, J. (1992). America trans. Verso. Bhatnagar, R. D. Renu Dube and Reena Dube (2005). Female Infanticide in India: A Women’s Cultural History. SUNY Press. Chatterjee, P. (1995). When Melody Ruled the Day. In A. Vasudev (Ed.), Frames of Mind: Reflections in Indian Cinema (p. 51). Delhi: Indian Council for Cultural Research. Chatterji, S. A. (1999). The Culture Specific Use of Sound in Indian Cinema. International Symposium on Sound in Cinema, London, UK. Retrieved from http:// filmsound. org/ india/ Chow, R. (1995). Primitive Passions: Visuality, Sexuality, Ethnography, and Contemporary Chinese Cinema. Columbia University Press. Constable, C. (2014). Film, Theory and Philosophy: The Key Thinkers. Routledge. Derrida, J. (1982). “Différance”. In Margins of Philosophy (pp. 3–27). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Detha, V. D. (2006). Duvidha is realism Paheli reflects modern yen. IANS. Retrieved from http://www.indiaglitz.com/duvidha-is-realism-paheli-reflects-modern-yenhindi-news-19646.html Dudrah, R. K. (2006). Bollywood Sociology Goes To the Movies. Sage Publications Pvt. Ltd. Feuer, J. (1993). The Hollywood Musical. London: BFI Publishing. Freud, S. (1932, 1990). Introductory Lectures 16. W.W. Norton Company. Gane, M. (1993). Baudrillard Live: Selected Interviews. London: Routledge. Gokulsing, K. (1998). Indian Popular Cinema: A Narrative of Cultural Change. Institute of Education Press (IOE Press). Gopal, S., & Moorti, S. (Eds.). (2008). Travels Of Hindi Song and Dance: Global Bollywood. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Gopalan, L. (2002). Cinema of Interruptions. London: British Film Institute. Halstead, N. (2005). Belonging and Respect Notions viz a viz Modern East Indians: Hindi Movies in the Guyanese East Indian Diaspora. In Bollyworld Popular Indian Cinema Through A Transnational Lens. Sage.

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Ham, M. (2004). Excess and Resistance in Feminised Bodies: David Cronenberg’s Videodrome and Jean Baudrillard’s Seduction. Senses of Cinema, (30). Hundred Years of Indian Cinema. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.emirates247. com/entertainment/bollywood-celebrates-100th-year-of-song-and-dance-ladenfilms-2013-04-29-1,504403 John, S., & Graeber, D. (2013). Zizek on Seduction. Retrieved from http://thebaffler. comhttp://www.lacan.com /thesymptom/?page_id=2720 Kabir, N. M. (2001). Bollywood: The Indian Cinema Story. London: Chanel 4 Books. Kabra, H. (2005). Interview of Amol Palekar. Retrieved from http://www.outlookindia.com/article/amol-palekar/227230 Karnad, G. (2013). Indian Cinema and the Creation of a Nation. 26th Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial IFFCO Lecture, New Delhi, India. Retrieved from http://www. deccanherald.com/content/369319/song-dance-indian-cinema039s-strength.html Kracauer, S. (1960). Theory of Films: The Redemption of Reality. Oxford, UK: Oxford Univ. Press. Lacan, J. (1979). The Function and Field of Speech and Language in Psychoanalysis. In Écrits: A Selection. W.W. Norton & Co. Munsterberg, H. (1916). The Photoplay. A Psychological Study. New York: Appleton. Negi, M. (2005, March 1). Amol Palekar on Paheli. Hindustani Times. O’Beeman, W. (1980). The use of Music in Pop Film: East vs. West. Indian International Center Quarterly, 8(1), 77-87. Rajamani, R. (2005). The man behind Paheli’s tunes. Retrieved from www.rediff. com/movies/2005/May/11 kreem.htm Sen, R. (2005). Paheli is a breathtaking dream. Retrieved from http://www.rediff. com/movies/2005/jun/24pah.htm Travolta, J. (2014). Retrieved from http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/videobollywood-awards-kevin-spacey-699256 Vasudevan, R. (1995). Addressing the Spectator of a Third World National Cinema: The Bombay Social Film of the 1940’s and 1950’s. Screen, 36(4), 305-25. Vasudevan, R. (2000). The politics of cultural address in a “transitional” cinema: a case study of popular Indian cinema. In C. Gledhill & L. Williams (Eds.), Reinventing Film Studies (pp. 130–164). London: Arnold. 156

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Vasudevan, R. (2011). The Melodramatic Public Film Form and Spectatorship in Indian Cinema. Palgrave Macmillan. Warrier, A. (2014). Conversations over Chai. Retrieved from http://anuradhawarrier. blogspot.com/2014/03/paheli.html

ENDNOTES

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India is the largest producer of feature films in the world. Estimates are that between 800 to 1000 films are produced in India annually compared to Hollywood, which produces half that number. Indian cinema has been around since 1913, the year when the first Indian film – D.G. Phalke’s Raja Harishchandra - was released. At the present time it is estimated that 23 million viewers watch a Hindi film per day. These statistics only make sense when we realize that popular films constitute India’s largest cultural product and offer students of film a vast archive of nonwestern cinema. Even though Bombay or Mumbai, as it is now called, is the center for the production of most Hindi language films Bombay cinema has always found a market overseas with films exported to the ex-Soviet Union, the Middle East, parts of Africa, South-East Asia, the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, and wherever there are Indian immigrants in North America, U.K., Australia, Hong Kong. Since the 1980’s overseas markets, especially in the US and UK have seen an expansion of this market, with films seeking out the diaspora viewer. At the same time, interestingly, reports indicate that when an Indian film is shown in centers around the US, 60% of the viewers are non-Indians. The soundtrack for Inside Man features the song “Chaiyya Chaiyya”, written by Gulzar and music composed by A. R. Rahman, which originally appeared in the 1998 Hindi film Dil Se The song is featured during the opening credits of the film. A remix of the song, titled “Chaiyya, Chaiyya Bollywood Joint” plays during the end credits, and features Panjabi MC’s added rap lyrics about people of different backgrounds coming together in order to survive. See Feuer (1993). She notes that Hollywood musicals “not only show you singing and dancing, they are about singing and dancing” (p. x); while Indian films use, according to Dudrah “singing and dancing to show you the story” so more than just a spectacle, it is a narratological element, “if you miss a song, you miss the story” (p. 48). See Dudrah (2006). All three actors have expressed the desire to “dance around the trees” in a Bollywood movie. At the International Film Academy Awards (IFFA) function of 2014, held in at the Raymond James Stadium in Tampa Florida, Kevin 157

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Spacey broke out into an impromptu version of the popular “Lungi Dance” from Disney India’s 2013 Shah Rukh Khan blockbuster Chennai Express; at the same function John Travolta known for his dance moves showed off his signature Saturday Night Fever and Pulp Fiction dance and accepted an award for “most popular all-time international star in India.” Travolta was all praise for Bollywood, saying, “I recently saw the Romeo and Juliet one, Ram-Leela; in that the first musical number was wow… I find Hindi films very original and full of life — they capture your attention unlike any other film…So yes, I am a big fan of Hindi films.” See Travolta (2014). In a more recent television interview with Robert De Niro and Anne Hathaway during their promotion of the film “The Intern” De Niro while acknowledging that he had not seen any Bollywood movies remarked that they have a lot of singing and dancing, while Hathaway said “I would be in heaven” if she were invited to act in a Bollywood movie because, “They don’t make enough musicals in Hollywood.” See DeNiro (2015). Director Ram Gopal Verma’s judgement that song and dance is the reason Hindi cinema has not found a global audience while the actor-director Amir Khan believes that song and dance are the dealmaker. Cited in Gopal and Moorti (2008) pg. 1. Gopal and Moorti call song and dance “the constitutive limit of Bollywood cinema” (ibid.) and “a metonymy for India” (3). Karnad’s praise of song and dance in Indian films are noteworthy for the fact that Karnad himself is identified with the song-and-danceless alternative cinema. In addition, Karnad in his lecture highlighted how Hindi cinema went about building the nation without realizing it: in their search for maximum audience for a product that would be consumed by audience all over India, Hindi cinema created new idioms, new language and new music. He attributes to Hindi cinema the credit for taking Hindi language to non-Hindi speaking areas, “Generations after generations in non-Hindi regions of India learnt Hindi thanks to the films. But this language was not sitting there ready-made to be used . . . It is only after years of experiment that a kind of Hindi is manufactured, close to khadi boli, which becomes the standard “Bambayya Hindi”.” See Gane (1993). For a virtuoso application of Baudrillard’s theory of seduction to film see Ham (2004). Gopalan notes that interruptions bear a different relationship to the diegesis which includes serving to “delay the development of the plot, distracting us from the other scenes of the narrative through spatial and temporal disjunctions, and bearing an integral link to the plot…complicating the idea of a single diegesis or the value of the extra-diegetic” (2002, 19, italics mine).

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See Chatterjee (1995) p. 51; Kabir (2001) p. 15; and Gopal and Moorti (2008) p. 5. Gokulsing & Dissanayake (1998) comment, the “audiences perceive no disjuncture between the story with its realistic, everyday setting and the song and dance sequences. This is primarily because they have come to accept (and I would add even revel in the fact) that films are governed by conventions commonly shared between them and the filmmakers and audiences. These conventions have evolved over time and have achieved a measure of stability.” Chatterji writes: “Songs and dances in popular Indian cinema are used as natural expressions of everyday emotions and situations. While seeking to intensify the element of fantasy through music and spectacle, popular cinema also reinforces the impression that songs and dances are the natural and logical expression of emotion in a given situation within the filmic narrative. This coincides, to a large extent, to the Indian social reality where music forms an integral part of life itself…Music contributes a vital ingredient in the cultural reconstruct of emotion. Popular cinema however, has learnt to adapt it to suit to the changing demands of an increasingly global audience through exaggeration, plagiarisation, adaptation of Western fads like rap, and has placed it against spectacle” (op cit., 1999). See Vasudevan (2000). The term, “a cinema of attractions” is a term he borrows from Tom Gunning who used this term in 1986 in his article, “The cinema of attraction: early film, its spectator, and the avant garde” to describe a cinema in which popular traditions such as the fairground and carnival meet an avant-garde subversion – most especially seen in the work of Eisentein, where, “a montage of attractions intensified this popular energy into an aesthetic subversion to undermine the conventions of bourgeois realism.” Vasudevan notes that these attractions appeared in certain genres of early Indian cinema, B-class stunt films as well as mythologicals, but by the 1950s had expanded to all kinds of films. Vasudevan describes the Hindi film narrative as “modular”, loosely structures in the fashion of a pre-classical cinema, especially extra-diegetic sequences which may also be called sequences or cinema of attractions (1995, 307) in which song and dance and for that matter comic sequences function as “para-narrative units” (1989, 31). Other commentators work on early Indian cinema has described this as a function of the fact that cinema in India developed at the time of anti-colonial struggles, and therefore harbored the desire to domesticate cinematic technology and develop a national cinematic style. See Gopalan (2002). The notion that the medium of film works primarily with a mythical view of the world is a commonplace in film studies. Film theorist and filmmaker Béla Balázs suggests that film has taken over the role which myths, legends 159

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and folk-tales used to play. He sees film not as a reservoir of myths, but as the form of production of new myths. See his Theory of the Film published posthumously in English (London: Denis Dobson, 1952). Gopal and Moorti note, “Bollywood cinema partakes in at least three circuits of globalization: metropolitan, diasporic, and subaltern . . . in the global South Hindi film music functions outside commodity logic and articulates an alternative globalism” (op.cit., 2008,7). They give an excellent example of how Bollywood songs and dances simultaneously code the first generation immigrants’ nostalgia as well as the second generation’s alternative identification (op. cit, 2008, 8). I am indebted to Rey Chow for this insight, though she writes this in the context of China (1995). For instance see Vasudevan (2011) 356. In contrast to Gopal and Moorti, Girish Karnad makes the point that postindependence, while regional cinemas concentrated on their language markets, it was only Hindi cinema that from the start reached out to engage the whole of India. It ignored the specific problems of the Hindi region, and thereby, unlike Tamil cinema for instance, stayed outside of politics, and carefully made films (like Devdas) which attract audiences far and wide. Amol Palekar commenced his artistic career as a painter and has been active in the avant garde Marathi and Hindi theatre as an actor, director and producer. His contribution to modern Indian theatre often gets overshadowed by his popularity as a lead actor in Hindi films during the decade of the 70s. He was virtually the superstar of the alternative middle-of-the-road Hindi cinema with his image as a “boy next door” during the same time that superstar Amitabh Bachchan ruled Hindi cinema as the larger-than-life hero prevalent in mainstream Hindi cinema of the time. As a director, he is known for the sensitive portrayal of women, penchant for classic stories from Indian literature, and cinematic examination of progressive issues. Although the film is called “An Amol Palekar film” and almost all the commentators refer only to Palekar as the filmmaker, the screenplay and dialogues are written by Sandhya Gokhale who is a qualified lawyer, dialogue writer as well as screenwriter and wife of Palekar as well as his assistant-director in this film. Therefore, for the purposes of this essay I refer to the director duo rather than to Palekar alone. “When Shah Rukh and I came together to make this film, some people said, ‘Oh! Amol Palekar has become corrupt and has come to mainstream cinema.’ Others said, ‘Oh! Shah Rukh has not won a National Award and therefore he is doing this film.’ I just think we are two people with different sensibilities

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and the capability to create a different kind of magic. This is the simple belief with which we came together, and we have made a very loveable film” (Negi, 2005). Vijay Dan Dehta is a Sahitya Akademi award winner with several other honors to his credit, hails from Rajasthan, Borunda village in Jodhpur district. In a span of five decades, he has written 10 novels, 1,200 short stories and about 150 essays in his native Rajasthani as well as Hindi. His “Charandas Chor” was immortalized by celebrated theatre director Habib Tanvir. About Palekar’s changed ending of Paheli, said Detha, it might appeal as progressive thinking to the modern mind, but hardly reflects reality (Detha, 2006). The earlier film version of the same tale by Detha, Mani Kaul’s most acclaimed film Duvidha (1973), opens on two traditional staples of all cultural events in India: the first is an image of a lit earthern oil lamp on a wall shelf, evoking the traditional Indian ritual of lighting an oil lamp to inaugurate a cultural event. The next shot is a flat, Godardian image of a woman in a red saree standing in front of a white wall, staring determinedly into the camera; reminiscent of the frozen image of Truffaut’s juvenile delinquent, suggesting a predicament addressed to the audience. On the soundtrack we hear a high-pitched Rajasthani folksinger singing a traditional folksong propitiating the Gods, inviting the audience, and launching the tale. Therefore, even in Kaul’s experimental formal cinematic style, the seduction of the traditional expectation of music and song as an inaugural moment proves irresistible. It is interesting that Gopal and Moorti write that song–dance participates in the emergence of vernacular modernities; and the transformation of the song-dance sequence, and arguably the Hindi film product itself, into a valued commodity that is fetishized in the global marketplace as a “difference-making device.” Gopal and Moorti interpret this difference making as the various ways in which Hindi films are consumed –as kitch, as neo-Orientalist artifact, and as placeholder for memory and ethnic identity. National Award winning music director M. M. Kreem writes his name thus only for Hindi films. He uses M M Keeravani for his Telugu projects and Maragathamani for Tamil films. “Stephen King had two identities, I have three,” says the composer, who shuttles between Hyderabad, Chennai and Mumbai. About Paheli Kreem says: “Film music, according to me, is of two kinds -- for the lip and hip…the first, which is long-lasting and doesn’t provide scope for pelvic movement.” About the music by M. M. Kreem, Palekar said in an interview: “He is a most fascinating music director. There are very few music directors today who have the capacity to recreate the kind of melody which would remind you of the early 70s and the 80s. Composers like Madan Mohan, S.D. Burman they gave us enchanting music. Kreem too has the same ability” (Negi, 2005). 161

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Kaul’s most acclaimed film Duvidha (1973) is not presented as an exotic tale; instead the ‘story’ is read out verbatim to us by the narrator, freeing the film from the burden of storytelling, allowing it to experiment with the imagery. Employing a number of photographs, freeze frames, jump cuts and replays, which illustrate the film’s central notion of temporal and geographical dislocation and manipulating time, Kaul weaves a narrative where the past, the present and the future are always in conversation. (The ghost is simply ‘Bhoot’ (ghost), also the word for ‘past’). The predicament of the title, involves a choice between the spiritual and the material, the bride’s past and future, her childhood and adulthood, her freedom and honor and her love and security. Bewitchingly shot and impressively designed, with a simple yet striking interplay of red and white, Duvidha builds on both Kaul’s feminist leanings and highly personalized aesthetic. The song was a reused tune of a soulful but energetic duet ‘Naadir Dhina’ from Kreem’s Telugu movie Okariki Okaru (2003). The slow sensual version in Paheli illustrates how song and dance can sometimes be the outcome of creative borrowing and refitting to the new film situation. Clearly Amitabh Bachchan rates his “guest appearance” in the film very highly. In a recent tweet (24th June, 2015) he reminded his followers that it was the 10th anniversary of Paheli (2005). The birth of a daughter rather than son, as a love child of the lovers, is also a political decision of the film given that Rajasthan has the dubious distinction of being at the forefront of female infanticide and feticide. See my co-authored book, 2005. An important point in defining the medium of film as a medium of seduction is the phantom –like, dream-like quality of the cinematic projection. As far back as 1916, the philosopher Hugo Munsterberg (1916) defined his theory of film in terms of the aesthetic illusion of the nineteenth century to draw attention, amongst other features, to the musical quality of cinematic orchestration and montage. Siegfried Kracauer called Hollywood the “dream factory” films generally as a “play on dreams” (1960). anuradhawarrier.blogspot.com writes: “This is one of his[Shah Rukh Khan’s] finest roles, and one where he performed so well that it shocked me when, in a TV interview after its poor showing at the box-office, he disowned the film. I must confess that it made me think a little bit less of him.” See Halstead, 2005. anuradhawarrier.blogspot.com illustrates the difference in the reaction of insider/outsider to the movie very well. com writes: “I hadn’t seen it yet, then, and I remember my younger cousin who was visiting from India telling me he hated it - ‘A woman falling in love with a ghost!’ were the exact words he used, in the most disparaging tones ever. I was slightly

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taken aback. He and I usually shared similar tastes when it came to music and movies. Here’s what happened - I fell in love with it. In its entirety. The plot, the acting, the colour palette, the songs... everything.... this is my opinion of Paheli. Paheli is a film about choices. It is also about consequences. It is about a woman’s sexuality and her acceptance of the same. It is a film that is definitely not black and white, and I’m not talking about Ravi Chandran’s exquisite cinematography that saturated the desert landscape with such vibrant colour. Finally, it is about human emotions - infatuation, love, grief, abandonment, greed...”

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Chapter 8

Seduction in Works of Art Laura González The Glasgow School of Art, UK

ABSTRACT What is it about certain things that occupy our thought until we get hold of them, until we somehow possess them? Why is it that we hopelessly, predictably, inevitably fall for certain works of art? What is it about certain objects that seduce us? This chapter seeks to study the seductiveness of objects, something that also preoccupied Jean Baudrillard and is found at the core of his thinking. The work studies a very particular kind of object: the work of art, although consumption and captology, designed objects and other types of objecthood are also used as examples. The perspective adopted here, however, is not related to the historical or economic contexts of the objects. The truth about seduction will not be sought (it would deceive, anyway); or, indeed, an interpretation for the purposes of academic knowledge, which would kill it; or, again, its representation, which would be a flawed and false undertaking, if not impossible.

SEDUCTION AND BAUDRILLARD’S CRITIQUE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS This chapter is concerned with the practice of seduction and with the subjective aspects of the relation, which will be examined through the study of its manifestation in the practices of art, in surrealist works such as Meret Oppenheim’s Breakfast in Furs and Man Ray’s Cadeau, as well as contemporary pieces such as Seductor (Seducer) by Naia del Castillo. Psychoanalysis, through Sigmund Freud and Jacques DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-0525-9.ch008 Copyright ©2017, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Seduction in Works of Art

Lacan, and Jean Baudrillard’s critical monograph will be the intellectual territory of the analysis. It may seem strange to join these two approaches, as many of Baudrillard’s writings, including The Ecstasy of Communication (1988), Seduction (1990), and Fatal Strategies (1999), critique psychoanalysis. This thorny relationship is explored through seduction itself, bringing the two positions closer and developing a strategy to consider seduction in works of art. Seduction is a phenomenon; it is also a process, a strategy, or a principle. The idea of seduction as principle integrates conceptions that consider it to be an instinct and behaviour. Seduction is understood as a principle that regulates relations in the world. Authors that adhere to this perspective see the relationship between seducer and seducee as primordial and all acts are acts of seduction. Seduction as process incorporates seduction as mechanics, system, and art. The seducer, through an act of seduction, entices the seducee. The emphasis is placed in the characteristics and qualities of the act. Seduction as phenomenon assimilates seduction as experience and as event. This category is concerned with the context in which the seducer commits the act of seduction that captivates the seducee, and with the nature of each of these elements. This chapter, however, is concerned with a fourth conception, seduction as practice, Giacomo Casanova and Valmont’s practice in Choderlos de Laclos’ epistolary novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses, for example. This idea combines discussions around libertinage. Studies focusing on this aspect are concerned with, and place emphasis on whom or what the seducer is and does. Baudrillard’s understanding of seduction is polymorphous, true to the term’s slippery connotations. He understands it as an overriding principle: ‘everything is seduction and nothing but seduction’ (Baudrillard, 1990: 83). In The Ecstasy of Communication, Baudrillard provides us with a reasonably accurate definition. He writes: ‘seduction is what seduces, and that’s that’ (1988: 57). The phenomenon’s understanding is arrived at through an engagement with its process. He offers a few more pointers in his book Seduction (1990: 81): ‘… a mode of circulation that is itself secretive and ritualistic, a sort of immediate initiation that plays by its own rules…’. He also writes: ‘to seduce is to die as reality and reconstitute oneself as illusion’ (1990: 69). Through reversible, challenging, dual techniques, seduction encourages a change of direction and leads one astray from what can be considered ‘right behaviour’—in Baudrillard’s case, what he may define as ‘truth’ or ‘meaning’. But it is Rex Butler’s masterly paraphrase of Baudrillard, that offers the most complete definition: seduction is ‘the getting of another to do what we want, not by force or coercion, but by an exercise of their own, though often mistaken or misguided, free will’ (Butler, 1999: 71). If Baudrillard’s idea that seduction is a ruling principle is accepted, locating and isolating certain contexts in which its modus operandi is self-evident becomes a possibility. This will facilitate the exploration of how seduction operates. The gallery space and the psychoanalytic room in particular fulfill this characteristic. Whereas Baudrillard is 166

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sympathetic to, and sometimes even seduced by, art—as his work with French artist Sophie Calle shows—he is very critical of psychoanalysis: Psychoanalysis, this most admirable edifice, the most beautiful hallucination of the back-world, as Nietzsche would say. The extraordinary effectiveness of this model for the simulation of scenes and energies—an extraordinary theoretical psychodrama, this staging of the psyche, this scenario of sex as a separate instance and insurmountable reality (akin to the hypostatization of production). What does it matter if the economic, the biological or the psychic bear the costs of this staging—of what concern is the ‘scene’ or ‘the other scene’: it is the entire scenario of sexuality (and psychoanalysis) as a model of simulation that should be questioned. (Baudrillard, 1990: 41) Baudrillard places seduction and interpretation in opposition and this is what his main critique of psychoanalysis is based upon. Whereas psychoanalysis allows for latent discourse (the truth of the symptom) to come through manifest discourse (the appearance of speech), seduction turns discourse away from truth. He argues that what leads a discourse to be seductive cannot be found in its hidden meaning but in its appearance. There is nothing to interpret. Seduction turns meaning into a game, whereas psychoanalysis aims to eliminate seduction, or in Lacanian terms, to get the analyst out of their supposed position of knowledge (Evans, 1996). Baudrillard wonders whether psychoanalysis is in itself a model of simulation. Are the effects of seduction beginning to work their damage into psychoanalysis through the realisation that the unconscious seduces mainly by its dreams and the id’s speech?

ART AND PSYCHOANALYSIS: RECEIVED IDEAS, GAZE AND PRIVILEGED ENCLOSURES As paradoxical as it may sound, one can concur with, and challenge, Baudrillard’s position. Indeed, the unconscious seduces. This is why it can be maintained that in psychoanalysis, when thought of as a practice—’a practical treatment of a patient, the concrete process of an analysis’ (Felman, 1987: 57)—, seduction takes place. To understand how it operates in the consulting room, if one has not had first hand experience themselves, it may be beneficial to put it in relation to another kind of frame where seduction is also primordial to organising a relationship, an encounter: the gallery space. Baudrillard understood well the spaces of art—of which the gallery is just one of many—, and he often discussed them (see, for example The Transparency of Evil, 1993; The Conspiracy of Art, 2005), although not from the perspective of seduction. 167

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The links between the practices of art and psychoanalysis have also been examined before (see, for example, Adams, 1991; Samuels, 1995; Dachy, 2000; Kivland, 2005). Both are dominated by a range of received ideas. In psychoanalysis, the popular belief is that hidden meaning or, in Baudrillard’s paraphrase of Freud, ‘latent discourse’ (Baudrillard, 1990: 53), is what dominates the sessions. Manifest discourse, however, is also firmly at play through inflexions in speech, repeated or mistaken words, forgettings and lapses, the infamous slips of the tongue, hums and ruffles. The analysand often wonders about the analyst: how she may be sitting, where she may be looking at… Is she awake? If we understand it as practice—instead of as a science, a theoretical framework, a method, or a view of the world—analysis is as much about interpretation as it is self-reflexive, about itself, about its discourse. Moreover, Freud (2002) understood interpretation as a tool, rather than an end in itself, and, at that, he favoured construction over interpretation. In analysis, interpretations are not true or false but a tool to reveal something, to disturb defensive mechanisms and resistance. There is a dance of interpretation that gets performed: the patient sees things one way and tries to push the analyst to see her view of the world; so does the analyst, by pushing the patient over to another position. The nature of this dance is collaborative, a dance of negotiation. This is why Lacan promoted the name of analysand, as a counterpart to the analyst. When the analysand takes her place on the couch, the analyst sits at her head. In the presence of its absence, in its double mark, gaze—a seductive phenomenon (Baudrillard, 1988)—commands transference, that dual, challenging and complex relationship between analyst and analysand. Elements of a transferential relationship can also be found in the gallery space. Freud’s concept of scopophilia, where the act of looking—voyeurism or active scopophilia—and the experience of being looked at— exhibitionism or passive scopophilia—are associated with pleasure (Freud, 1949; Leader, 2002: 10-17) is particularly relevant in the artistic and psychoanalytic contexts. They both share properties with the mirror, ‘the realm of appearances where there’s nothing to see, where things see you’ (Baudrillard, 1990: 64). The analyst and the work of art are but some of those things mentioned by Baudrillard. Seduction is a question of two (Fisher & Livingstone, 1998). Both art and psychoanalysis are relational practices, involving an analyst and an analysand, or a singular work of art and an individual viewer, meeting in specific contexts (the gallery space, the consulting room) with particular rules of engagement, where almost anything could happen. The light could turn itself on and off (as in Martin Creed’s Work No. 227, displayed at the Tate Gallery in London in 2001); the whole space may have been taken up by a nightmarish vision (as in Mike Nelson’s installations); the gallery attendants may come to life, ask tricky questions, dance around viewers or simply follow them (as they do in Tino Sehgal’s work). Both spaces are dominated

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by certain rituals, for example, a calculated distance between viewer and work, precise positional relation between analyst and analysand. These contexts are also comprised by institutional conventions. In the case of the consulting room these include the duration and fee charged for the sessions, and a multitude of objects: carpets, cushions, chair, couch, prints, paintings, books; in the gallery space: white walls, ceiling light, a discreet desk, a fire hose. Mignon Nixon (2005) and Brian O’Doherty (1999) coincide in naming this particular setting the ‘frame’. These provide the constants in which the process takes place. According to Donald Winnicott (1989), this environmental provision, this arrangement of place, is a condition to the work of analysis, essential to the unbinding that needs to be done. The viewer and the analysand are in the world of an other, since artworks and analysts will not easily come to one’s home. These spaces, the gallery and the consulting room are, in the words of Chris Oakley, privileged enclosures: … what is exemplified here is the privileged enclosure. At one level the analytic space, behind closed doors, the locus of seduction, a place of the wildness of intimacy, for believe it or not, all this does exist, which is not to say that it happens to all. (Oakley, 2000: 149) Beyond space, rituals and relationships, seduction emerges from the object, whether in the form of an analyst (for the analysand) or a work of art (for the viewer). Whereas understanding how an analyst may seduce might be more accessible, the question of how can objects, in particular works of art, lead someone astray needs examination. I will provide this through a few detours.

SEDUCTION AT THE SCENE On the 26 November 1938, when he was just twenty-two years old, the actor and singer Frank Sinatra was arrested in Hoboken, New Jersey, having promised marriage to a woman in exchange for sexual intercourse. His famous mug shot, taken in the Sheriff’s Office in Bergen County, accompanies a suspect’s identification card, where the crime is simply stated as seduction. He was freed two months later upon the discovery that the woman in question was already married. The reversible nature of this story, the fact that the boundaries between the seducer and the victim are blurred, is key to the way seduction works. In 1770, the English Parliament tried to protect its subjects against rising feminine emancipation by unsuccessfully attempting to introduce the following Act:

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All women of whatever rank, profession or degree, whether virgins, maids or widows, that shall from and after such Act, impose upon, seduce and betray into matrimony, any of his Majesty’s subjects by the scents, paints, cosmetic washes, artificial teeth, false hair, Spanish wool [a wool impregnated with carmine to color the skin], iron stays, hoops, high-heeled shoes, and bolstered hips, shall incur the penalty of the law now in force against witchcraft and like misdemeanors, and that the marriage upon conviction shall be null and void. (Charles John Samuel Thompson, cited in Minton, 1946: 166) These two examples allude to the crime of seduction, where a man obtains a woman’s consent to sexual intercourse by promising to marry her (Robertson, 2006). Seduction is also used to refer to women who embellished themselves by artificial means or through accessories. This, however, has deep contradictions. Stephen Robertson alerts us to the fact that Many ‘seduced’ women described acts that had been accomplished as much by violence as by a promise of marriage. Nonetheless, most of those women expressed a desire to wed the man that they accused, rather than to have him sent to prison. (Robertson, 2006: 333) Despite the apparent precision of seduction’s legal definition, these two vignettes highlight a conflict at the core of the term, which is related to promises—often broken—and also to artifice. The vignettes also address the characteristics of reversibility and objectification, pivotal to seduction and related to Karl Marx’s concept of commodity fetishism, found in capitalist societies, a phenomenon by which objects adopt characteristics related to the social relation between subjects, and relations between subjects assume characteristics reserved for objects. There is confusion between the seductive object and the fetish object. There may be situations in which a seductive object becomes a fetish object, although these two qualities are distinct. There are also two competing uses of the term fetishism: one clinical and one related to political economy, as a quality inherent to commodities. I have simplified the meanings and uses of the term fetish here for the purposes of clarity. In his study of the fetish in architecture, Mark Wigley offers a very good genealogy of the term, ‘coined at the intersection of discourses rather than within them’ (Wigley, 1996: 88). For him, the term is critical, as it questions the status of the object and, by extension, of discourse. It translates between radically different systems, but does not inhabit them. Both Freud and Marx’s conception of the fetish would fit this description, the systems being reality and psychic space, cultural systems or systems of production. Baudrillard also thought about the fetish (mainly in For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign) and his account is summarized 170

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and examined by Wigley. Both notions, Marx’s commodity fetishism and Freud’s clinical concept are relevant to seduction, with commodity fetishism as more central and connected, and Freud’s pathology as a possible extreme within the scale. Marx relates commodity fetishism to the idea that seduction will seduce everything, and to Baudrillard’s assertion that seduction is something objects do; Freud, on the other hand, connects seduction to desire. Marx’s concept is primordial, essential and operates as a principle in commodities and in the capitalist world in a way similar to seduction, whereas Freud observes the individuality of the fetish object for the fetishist. Commodity fetishism is intimately related to the phenomenon of commodification, a process undergone by certain areas of social interaction, including art. I will address both definitions in order to show the enigmatic qualities of objects and how they can become objects of seduction and, if traveling further on the path of seduction, fetishes. Before Richard von Krafft-Ebing’s conceptualisation of the term in relation to sexuality, a fetish was an inanimate object of worship, as those found in primitive religions. (Evans, 1996: 63). Since Krafft-Ebing’s adoption of the term in a clinical setting, fetishism is a deviation, a perversion that occurs when sexual excitement is dependent on a particular object, usually inanimate—a shoe, a special shine on the nose. This object acts as a symbolic substitute, in contrast to the phobic object, an imaginary substitute. These two terms—symbolic and imaginary—take us to Lacan whose theorising, from 1953 onwards, turns around a classification system known as the ‘three orders’: the Real, the Imaginary and the Symbolic (Evans, 1996: 133134). The most succinct explanation of how these registers operate can be found in Žižek. In a game of chess, the Symbolic would be the rules of the game, the way the pieces are allowed to move; the Imaginary would be represented by the pieces themselves (a knight instead of a messenger, for example) whereas the Real would be the contingent circumstances affecting the game (Žižek, 2006b: 8-9). Although they interact and relate in various and complex ways, these realms are distinct from Freud’s two classic triads: the Unconscious, Pre-conscious and Conscious; and the Id, Ego and Super-Ego. Freud asserts that fetishism is an almost exclusively male phenomenon as it relates to the horror of castration. Lacan, with his argument that the penis is a fetish object substituting the phallus, readdressed this gender imbalance, establishing that, thus, fetishism can be a female activity (Evans, 1996: 63-64). Whereas a complete study of the term fetishism and its relation to objects and subjectivity would constitute a separate study in its own right, its differentiation from the seductive object and fetishism are of relevance here. I also take into account psychoanalytic approaches to the study of fetishism and the gaze in relation to contemporary cultural manifestations (Krips, 1999). This etymology allows understanding of why and how Marx adopted the term commodity fetishism in his discussion of capitalist societies (Marx, 1976). Marx titled his fourth section of the 171

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first volume of Capital, ‘The Fetishism of the Commodity and its Secret’. In that section, he coined the term commodity fetishism, arguably one of his major contributions to the field of political economy, which signals the complicated relation between objects and people. Marx opens with a definition of commodity: ‘[it] is, first of all, an external object, a thing which through its qualities satisfies human needs of whatever kind’ (Marx, 1976: 125). However, he also warns that ‘a commodity appears at first sight an extremely obvious, trivial thing. But its analysis brings out that it is a very strange thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties’ (Marx, 1976: 163). Commodities have two types of value associated with them: use-value—what satisfies human need—and exchange-value—a quantitative measure that converts a product into a commodity by relating it to other commodities (Osborne, 2005: 12-14). It is this latter value, an ideal and social one (that is, collective, as it applies to many subjects) that appears to be natural to the object, and which contains the ‘metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties’ that make commodities contradictory, riddle-like, obscure to interpretation. Marx’s use of the term fetishism in his coining of commodity fetishism is radically different to Freud’s conception, who understood it as ‘a psychological condition of a subject, whose desire transforms the significance of particular objects’ (Osborne, 2005: 11). Freud’s conception also differs from Marx’s in that it has psychoanalytic individuality, that is, it applies to one subject, rather than a collectivity. To understand Marx, we must return to the definition of the fetish preceding Freud and even before the Enlightenment, and to the understanding of commodity as value rather than a physical object. For Marx, the fetish character of commodities is inherent to them insofar as they are commodities. So, in commodity fetishism, commodities are not fetishised by individual consumers—that may be termed, instead, consumer fetishism (Osborne, 2005: 11). Commodity fetishism is a product of the social relations of production characteristic of capitalism. When we think of commodities, we think of their use-value and their exchange-value, but the labour that goes on to producing them is not instantly graspable within them. This is what Marx refers to when he writes of the fetish character of commodities: The commodity-form, and the value-relation of the products of labour within which it appears, have absolutely no connection with the physical nature of the commodity and the material [dinglich] relations arising out of this. It is nothing but the definite social relation between men themselves which assumes here, for them, the fantastic form of a relation between things (Marx, 1976: 165). Put simply (and simplifying a complex concept), Marx is saying that, in capitalist societies, a commodity ‘stands on its head’, as social relations take the form of relations between things, and material relations are established between persons (Marx, 172

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1976: 163-166). According to Osborne, because commodity fetishism is an effect of something ‘purely social’ (exchange value) hiding its social basis, it ‘performs an internal critique of capitalism’s aspirations to be a rational social form’ (Osborne, 2005: 19-20). Thus, Marx brings the term ‘fetishism’ back to its etymological roots in Portuguese—feitiço—which relates to charm and sorcery and also ‘artificial, skillfully contrived’ (Sebeok, 2001: 115).1 Commodities share some aspects with seduction, in particular their mysterious character, which is one of their traits as described by Marx, and by Baudrillard in relation to seduction (Baudrilard, 1996: 79-85). Furthermore, Žižek points out that the most elementary definition of seduction comes from Marx’s Capital: ‘they do not know it but they are doing it’ (Žižek, 1989: 28). And even after Žižek re-works Marx’s formulation to adopt Peter Sloterdijk’s—’they know very well what they are doing, but still they are doing it’(Žižek, 1989: 29)—one could argue, based on the above, that seduction, and by extension desire, is the ideological principle of capitalism, a thesis supported by, among others, José Antonio Marina in his study of the ontology of contemporary desire (Marina, 2007: 18, 30). The definition of commodity adopted by Marx, together with the rapid development of capitalism (McGowan, 2004), led to the conceptualisation of commodification, a term used to explain the ‘transformation of relationships, formerly untainted by commerce, into commercial relationships, relationships of exchange, of buying and selling’ (Basgen & Blunden, 2004). Although this term was first coined in 1977, its processes and social implications are already criticised by Marx and Engels through their concepts of commodity fetishism—discussed above—and alienation, and in The Communist Manifesto: ‘The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage labourers’ (Marx & Engels, 2004: 6). Commodification gives economic value to things not previously thought of in those terms, converting them into tradeable commodities.2 This includes, for example ideas (their tradeable status expressed through intellectual property and copyright laws), identities, sports (through their professionalisation), education and health systems (though their privatisation) and, of course, art—through its commercialisation (Basgen & Blunden, 2004). The commercialisation of art and its impact in the practice of artistic creation has sprung a heated debate, largely still unresolved (Stallabrass, 2004), arguing the function of culture and, by extension art, in the capitalist world.

The Rules of Seduction As can be seen, seduction is something that applies to many fields of study, from criminology to marketing, from philosophy to popular psychology and, of course, psychoanalysis. Yet, there are a number of constants in all the literature available on the topic, and I want to propose four rules of seduction: 173

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First Rule: Seduction belongs to objects. This principle has been best articulated by Baudrillard in Fatal Strategies: ‘only the subject desires; only the object seduces’ (Baudrillard, 1999: 111). Seduction and desire are not discrete terms, but continuous with each other. They seem to relate to each other as if part of a moëbius strip, a topological surface with one single side and only one boundary component. As the two sides are continuous, a cross over, from inside to outside and back is possible. However, when one passes a finger round the surface of the moëbius strip, it is impossible to say at which precise point the crossing has taken place. To paraphrase Slavoj Žižek, seduction is not a simple reverse of content, we encounter it when we progress far enough on the side of desire itself (1991b: 230). Seduction, in and through Jacques Lacan’s Objet petit a—the object cause of desire, not the object which desire is directed to, but that which provokes desire—seduces desire and then moves on. Second Rule: The choice of an object of seduction depends on the individual subject. Seduction is something that is not fully generalizable. There is no one seductive object, other than Objet petit a (as will be discussed below), although some stand for it for a wide variety of people. Third Rule: Seduction is seductive. In order to seduce, one has to be seduced first. Baudrillard wrote: ‘the illusion that leads from the one to the other is subtle. Is it to seduce, or to be seduced, that is seductive? But to be seduced is the best way to seduce’ (Baudrillard, 1996: 81). Seduction is a matter of two and in the doubling up, there is a reversibility. Just as the encounter with the work of art takes place between a viewer. Fourth Rule: Seduction is pervasive. It will seduce everything, especially my attempts to study it. How can one overcome this, which already posed a problem for Freud—as the abandonment of his Neurotica theory, the misnamed seduction theory (to which I will return later) shows—and for Baudrillard, as Rex Butler explained?: […] we would say that Baudrillard’s writing embodies this disorder, does not try to master it or comment upon it but is subject to it, an effect of it. In speaking of the fundamental seduction of the world, it too wants to be seduced. It is to know that, insofar as what he is speaking of is true, he cannot say what it is, cannot directly imitate it. It is only by driving the inner logic of his writing to its furthest point, by it imitating nothing but itself, that he might somehow capture it, that this seduction might come about in writing or this writing be shown to be an effect of seduction. (Butler, 1999: 101)

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Baudrillard himself wrote, concerning seduction as an object of study: ‘The charm of seduction is first to be an unidentified theoretical object, a non-analytical object and which thus obstructs any truth-theory, leaving room for the fiction-theory and the pleasure of its pursuit’ (Baudrillard, 1980: 197).3 This leads us to the work of art.

A Detour through Design In order to attempt an answer to the question of seductive works of art, we will take a detour, so we can approach objects from a more general and experiential perspective than through art, by looking at design. Julie Khaslavsky and Nathan Shedroff (1999) exponents of Captology, the study of computers as persuasive technology, extract eight key characteristics of seduction from an analysis of Philippe Starck’s celebrated lemon squeezer, Juicy Salif. This object has been one of the most studied in relation to seduction, from disciplines as wide ranging as human computer interaction and marketing. Exploring this household object to study works of art, however, may be not be such a leap, as we will see later on. Juicy Salif is a functional object, charged with symbolic values. On pressing half of a citrus fruit upon its body, liquid falls, through the grooves, directly into a glass, which should be placed between its three legs. This is a peculiar looking object: its shape resembles an arachnid, or a spaceship, more sci-fi than juicer (González, 2009). Khaslavsky and Shedroff make several points: First, Juicy Salif entices by diverting attention. This is mainly due to the object’s appearance, as described above. Why would a lemon squeezer look like this, why would it be made of plated aluminium or gold when the material may be corroded by the citrus’ acidic juice? Why has it particular dimensions that do not fit in a standard kitchen cupboard? Why this shape that is not instantly recognisable as a citrus juicer? Two, Juicy Salif delivers a surprising novelty. Its function, its purpose is ambiguous. Due to its size, it is common for it to be displayed on top of the television, or on the mantle piece, in spaces not usually reserved for kitchen utensils. Three, Juicy Salif goes beyond the obvious needs and expectations of a usual lemon juicer. Offered as a kitchen utensil, it is made to look at, to contemplate. In fact, it can be argued that it operates in a similar way to an object d’art and is often confused with it (see, for example, how its stealing drives the plot of Manuel Gomez Pereira’s film All men are the same, 1994). Four, it creates an instinctive response, leading to ask questions about what it is, its function, or engendering feelings of fear. It squeezes lemons but it can also become an effective weapon. Five, it spouses values or connections to personal goals and, six, promises to fulfill these goals. Juicy Salif provokes a desire not only to possess the object, but also the values that helped create it, including creativity, vision, innovation, sophistication, elegance and originality. To the owner, it speaks as much about the designer as it does about them. Starck carries his authorship weight 175

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in a similar way to that of artists: the designer of this piece is seen to create, use influences, conceptualise, problematise and problem solve, express (Lees-Maffei, 2002), and all this, is embodied in Juicy Salif. Seven, it leads the user to discover something deeper about the experience of juicing lemons. Finally, these promises get renovated every time the object is used or looked at. Baudrillard would challenge Khaslavsky and Shedroff’s attempt at systematising seduction. For him, seduction is a game, a challenge; a veiling process, rather than an unveiling one (1990). Can academic discourse, taxonomies, help in the study of this principle? Would seduction itself not invalidate, seduce, these attempts? After all, ‘the strategy of seduction is one of deception’ (Baudrillard, 1990: 69), the eight seductive characteristics identified by Khaslavsky and Shedroff mainly describe the reception of seduction from the point of view of the seducee, but do not take into account the reversible properties of seduction (Baudrillard, 1990), the fact that to be seduced converts one into a seducer (Calle & Baudrillard, 1988). The seductive experience they refer to is that of the desiring subject, whose attention is diverted, has emotions, values, goals and squeezes lemons. The relationship between seduction and desire remains muddled by their analysis (as we will see later, the cross over in the Moebius strip has not been effected) and the seductive object and its destiny, together with the relational aspects of the absent object and the disappearing subject (Butler, 2005) have not been addressed. As a lemon squeezer, Juicy Salif deceives, turns away from truth and meaning. This is led by the object’s appearance; by the way it manifests itself. Its ambiguity has contributed to its successful sales at an average rate of 50,000 units per year since its launch in 1990 (Lloyd and Snelders, 2003). The identification of its main function as a conversation starter (Norman, 2004; Morgan, 1999) or ‘social lubricant’ (Lloyd and Snelders, 2003) has influenced, in turn, its acquisition of artistic status. Starck’s designs have been ‘—literally and figuratively—placed on pedestals’ (Whitely, 1994: 131) in shop displays (Julier, 2000), design museums and, more importantly, art galleries and museums (Sala Rekalde, Spain, 1997; Philadelphia Museum of Art, USA, 1998; Marble Palace at the State Russian Museum in St Petersburg; Centre for Contemporary Art at Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, 2002; Groninger Museum, the Netherlands; Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2003). This mode of display is not unique to this particular object and its strange manifestation. The status of certain cult objects, some more common looking but all seductive, has been enhanced by the conditions of our encounters with them. Manolo Blahnik’s 2003 exhibition at the Design Museum in London emphasises this play of positions between functional and contemplative objects. The display was highly theatrical, elaborating on potential narratives, maximising the impact of his shoes’ appearance. Each room represented one, often contradictory, aspect of the pieces: their cultural significance, their technical innovation, their architectural qualities, their 176

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ethnological value… The precious shoes, however, were out of reach and there was an air of hysteria about the gallery. Constant little cries were being uttered in what is normally a quiet space… For a female viewer (such as myself) it was a deeply unsatisfying show; but for that very same reason, a successful one, a show that left begging one for more because it revealed an ‘ironic reverie on the principle of functionality’ (1990: 64).

The Work of Art Those last words in the previous section were the ones chosen by Baudrillard to characterise Surrealist works. He also said that Surrealists ‘seek out the wrong or reverse side of things, and undermine the world’s apparent factuality’ (1990: 64). This is particularly relevant when referring to Meret Oppenheim’s Breakfast in Furs—a cup, saucer and spoon neatly covered with animal fur—and Man Ray’s Cadeau—an old fashioned household iron with nails on its plate. With deceptively simple strategies aimed at playing with function and haptics, both objects exist to unsettle the viewer, to challenge her to feel or think things that are only acceptable, and perhaps possible, in certain realms guided by specific conventions, like the gallery space or the analytic room. Baudrillard’s statement could, however, be applied to most works of art, and his writings offer a range of instances, mainly from the fields of music and literature. Butler argues that it can be concluded, from an analysis of these examples, that music and literature are ‘themselves seductive’ (1999: 107). If we also consider Baudrillard’s later interest in photography, in artists such as Sophie Calle, and his attempts to relate her work to themes developed in Seduction, one may argue that visual arts can be added to the category of things seductive in themselves. Let us look at some relevant contemporary examples. Naia del Castillo’s works Corral (2004) and Seductor (2002) explore relational aspects between viewer and work, through transformed everyday objects, much in the way of Oppenheim and Man Ray. Corral is a set of warm toned lipsticks, open in their golden casings. Some of them, however, have their rouge paste moulded into the shape of cockerels to make the yard, the corral. Seductor is a woman’s shirt where the place of the left breast, where a pocket usually sits in the menswear version, has been taken up by a piece of transparent lace roughly in the shape of a butterfly or a Rorschach test. One can only get close to these works through her photographic version of the sculptures, as the shirt is exhibited without the body and the lipstick is behind glass, both notours, as they are displayed in shops. Another example is Victoria Civera’s 1993 Sueño Amargo (Civera, 1993), which is made of tactile, familiar but obscenely red plastic handles, moulded together in a case, pierced by long sewing pins. These contemporary works—only a handful of examples—challenge common objects, 177

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overturning and transposing them, using reversible strategies, seeking out angles unseen or invisible before. Again, we come face to face with the two-sided quality described by Baudrillard (1990): common yet strange, familiar but unknown. This, in turn, leads back to psychoanalysis, through the concept of the uncanny. Freud’s 1919 essay ‘The Uncanny’ is much cited in visual arts: it relates closely to the subject of aesthetics, the theory of the qualities of feeling. The essay, especially in its English translation, is problematic. The word used by Freud in the original German version is das Unheimlich, literally, the unhomely. It is related to what is frightening—for example, it is translated as lo siniestro, the sinister, in Spanish. Freud finds, however, that not everything that is unhomely, unfamiliar, is uncanny. To explore this, he looks at definitions of the term and he finds that das Unheimlich and das Heimlich relate in more ways than just opposition. Das Heimlich is the familiar, the agreeable, but also what is concealed and kept out of sight. Das Unheimlich is that which ought to have remain hidden but has come to light. There is an ambivalence, Freud perceives where the uncanny coincides with its opposite. Freud explores the uncanny further through E. T. A. Hoffmann’s tale ‘The Sandman’, the story of a character who tears children’s eyes out. The idea of being robbed of one’s eyes recurs in the essay, as well as the döppleganger, the double, through the figure of the automaton. There is something unnerving, an intellectual uncertainty in not knowing whether an object is alive or not. In the uncanny, the link between imagination and reality is effaced; it is something familiar, which has become alienated through repression but which insists, returns. In this return, it provokes anxiety. As Lacan writes ‘every affect belonging to an emotional impulse, whatever its kind, is transformed, if repressed, into anxiety’ (Lacan, 2007: 241). For the early Baudrillard, art was a mode of seduction, a ‘lever of disappearance’ (Baudrillard, 1988: 71); now, art forms are ‘playing the game at the level of simulation’ (Baudrillard, 1987: 53-54). Some contemporary artworks, it could be said, still posit a challenge to the reality principle and, as seducers, belong to the category of art that was. The study of the works mentioned above—from Oppenheim and Man Ray to del Castillo and Civera—can help to effect the cross over from desire to seduction, a piece missing in Khaslavsky and Shedroff’s analysis. To explain this, I will call upon psychoanalysis once again, by means not of the ‘illusion of truth and interpretation’ but of the ‘Lacanian illusion of seduction’ (Baudrillard, 1990: 58). This has the potential to bring the positions of Baudrillard and psychoanalysis closer. Jacques Lacan’s most significant contribution to psychoanalysis is, arguably, his concept of Objet petit a, which I briefly mentioned above. Like the term seduction, Objet petit a resists systematisation (Fink, 1995). It is an unspecularisable object, an object that defies symbolisation and language; the cause of desire (Lacan, 1981), that which provokes desire (Fink, 1995: 91). Its name is an algebraic formula and, as such, it is normally left untranslated. The ‘a’, in small caps, relates to the little 178

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other (autre in French), which in Lacanian theory means reflexivity and identification, bringing us to the Ego; it is opposed to the big Other (A), the radical alterity of language and the law. A is symbolic, like the fetish object. Objet petit a evolves from an earlier concept, the Agalma, which is an object Alcibiades believed to be hidden in Socrates’ body (Lacan, 1991). Lacan later placed Objet petit a within Marxist theory, as surplus jouissance, a loss for the alienated subject. Slavoj Žižek equates Objet petit a to Alfred Hitchcock’s MacGuffin (Žižek, 1991a), something that drives the plot of a film but is in itself completely indifferent to it, like the name of the made-up secret agent George Kaplan with whom Cary Grant’s character is mistaken in North by Northwest (1959). Whatever manifestation we choose, Lacan’s Objet petit a is a void, a lack that corresponds to Baudrillard’s absence of truth, which he refers to in Seduction (1990). Objet Petit a can never be obtained because it has never been there in the first place. However, we circle around it, inevitably. As such, and like the uncanny, it is also an object of anxiety. Using the theft of Leonardo’s Mona Lisa from the Musée du Louvre, carried out by Vincenzo Peruggia on 21 August 1911 and the subsequent queues to look at the empty space left by the painting, Darian Leader explores the nature of art, desire and visual seduction. In his book Stealing the Mona Lisa, what art stops us from seeing, he puts forward the theory that, rather than humans being image-capturing devices, it is in fact the other way round: images are human capturing devices, especially in their absence (Leader, 2002). People seeing the empty space of the Mona Lisa did not queue for the actual painting. Leader plays with the idea of desiring objects, of objects embodying the enigmatic and malevolent dimension of the look of the Other. Luring and deceiving are intrinsic to the image. But this is something Baudrillard already tells us in his chapter on the trompe l’oeil in Seduction (1990). Lacan takes this further with the concept of dompte regard, a counterpart to the trompe l’oeil, a taming of the gaze, ‘that is to say, that he who looks is always led by the painting to lay down his gaze’ (Lacan, 1981: 109). This is also related to the idea of tour, a trick (truc, trucage), also a turn, which makes the drives—a force, an energy that is a partial, repetitive and excessive manifestation of desire—trick/ turn around the object. The relationship between seduction and desire is one Baudrillard contests and psychoanalysis rejects—as is evidenced by studies examining Freud’s renunciation of the ‘seduction theory’ (for example, Forrester, 1990; Roazen, 2002). Freud devised a theory he called Neurotica, and which later came to be known as the seduction theory, a misnomer (Laplanche, 1997: 653). In his 1896 letters to his friend Wilhelm Fliess, Freud explains his discovery of instances of childhood seduction in most of the hysteria and obsessional neurosis cases he was treating, thus finding a possible causal link for the afflictions (Freud, 2001b: 238-239). In Neurotica, Freud ‘specified the childhood erotic experiences which were precursors to the adult neurosis’ 179

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(Davis, 1994: 633). On the 14 August 1897, however, he writes ‘I no longer believe in my neurotica’, describing how he had understood that the seductions recounted by his patients were fantasies (Freud, 2001b: 259-260). This came to be known as the abandonment of the seduction theory (Masson, 1984). Seduction, as a clinical term and as recounted by Freud, is, according to Baudrillard, the ‘lost object’ of psychoanalysis (Baudrillard, 1990: 55) and it is believed that this rejection allowed the practice of psychoanalysis, as we know it today, to emerge, as Jean Laplanche and Jean-Bertrand Pontalis note: It is traditional to look upon Freud’s dropping of the seduction theory in 1897 as a decisive step in the foundation of psycho-analytic theory, and in the bringing to the fore of such conceptions as unconscious phantasy, psychical reality, spontaneous infantile sexuality and so on. (Laplanche & Pontalis, 1973: 361) How Freud’s rejection of the seduction theory allowed the development of psychoanalytic practice is explained by Shirley Nelson Garner (1989). There, she recounts how the end of the friendship between Freud and Wilhelm Fliess over a professional matter and, later on, the seduction theory, also had an effect in the transference Freud felt with regards to this ears, nose and throat doctor. Freud worked through the transference in his self-analysis, which in 1900 gave rise to the publication of his major work The Interpretation of Dreams. Thus, psychoanalysis itself is founded on seduction’s reversibility, its power to create and annihilate in an endless circle. This is what can be harnessed in relation to art.

WORK OF ART AS SEDUCER Despite the confusion of its definition and the pervasiveness overriding any attempts to study it, a synthesis of the approaches to seduction taken by different fields—not least psychoanalysis—and a discussion of terms related, but distinct from it, can help to shed some light on its workings. In order to study seduction as exerted by certain works of art, focus has to be shifted from the principle itself to the examination of seductive practices. This is seduction’s reversibility, upon which Baudrillard placed so much emphasis. Seduction (in and through the Objet Petit a) seduces desire and then moves on. Lacan put Objet petit a in play in his Four Discourses (Master, University, Analyst and Hysteric), which examine different social bonds or situations of power. The Four Discourses try to pin down what it means to speak. The Four Discourses are algebraic formulas in which the four same elements—Objet Petit a (a), The master signifier or a signifier outside of the chain of signification (S1); the chain of signification, 180

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the place from which one speaks, or knowledge (S2) and the split subject or subject of speech (S)—take four positions in turn (the agent, the other, truth/knowledge and product) to be put in relation to each other. In each of the four discourses, the positions rotate from master to hysteric, a quarter turn counterclockwise. In the Discourse of the Analyst, Lacan places objet petit a as representing the analyst in the commanding position. This position is that of the subject-supposedto-know (sujet supposé savoir): the analysand believes the analyst holds the key to her symptom, but the position is only illusory—even though this illusion is what brings the analysand to the consulting room—as knowledge cannot be found in any subject, but, instead, in the intersubjective relation (Evans, 1996: 197). Thus, this is how analysis takes place: the analyst interrogates the divided subject (S), the analysand. Her split shows through symptoms, parapraxes, unintended acts, dreams, forgettings, misrememberings. These constitute the master or single signifier (S1), which also represents the end of an association, something that stops the analysand’s speech, a signifier that is lost. Through analysis, this lost signifier is first, isolated; secondly, questioned and connected to other signifiers in a dialectic relationship (S2); and thirdly, got rid of (Žižek, 2006a). In the Discourse of the Analyst, the analyst herself (the agent) is represented by Objet petit a, becoming the object cause of desire for the analysand in this dual situation (Lacan, 2007). Following on from a number of parallels I established between the practices of art and analysis, as explored earlier, a new proposition, highlighting the workings of seduction in these two contexts, can be made: that the work of art is also a manifestation of Objet Petit a and therefore occupies, in the gallery space, the position the analyst takes in the consulting room. This analogy is one of the many that could be derived from problematising and relating two threefold interactions (Dachy, 2000): Art, with the artist, the work, the viewer; and Psychoanalysis, with the analyst, the speech and the analysand. As any analogy, it may show numerous things in common, but numerous assumptions and differences as well, so this can only be taken as a tool to provoke thoughts on seduction. It is not even a new analogy: the study of the mechanics of ‘artwork as analyst’ was vaguely hinted at by both Freud and Lacan. It has since then been worked through by Parveen Adams, in her contextualisation of Mary Kelly’s Interim exhibition (1991). It has been considered by Robert Samuels, in his examination of Lacan’s interest in art, especially Aragon’s poetry and Holbein’s Ambassadors (1995). It has been displayed in the art exhibitions held at the Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research, the talks accompanying them and the subsequent journal publication (Kivland & Du Ry, 2000). More recently, it has been discussed at psychoanalytic conferences, seminars and exhibitions, most notably the Psychoanalysis And The Creative/Performing Arts Seminars at the Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies in London (2007), later published as

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a book (Kivland and Segal, 2012). Building on these studies, it can be argued that the place the analyst and the artwork occupy, that of representing Objet Petit a, is, within the relational context of the gallery space, the place of the seducer. It is in the context of this last proposition that engaging with Baudrillard’s thought is of the outmost importance. First, his critique of psychoanalysis and of art (although the latter was not explicitly explored in this chapter) helps the practitioner—who might aim to create seductive works of art or engage in psychoanalysis—to be aware of a common error in this field, namely that of taking the assumptions underlying the theory and practice of art and psychoanalysis for granted, of not being able to take an overview and be critical about the paradigms and the pitfalls of their application. If there is a lesson to be learned in Baudrillard’s study of seduction, it is its power to critique systems. Secondly, the focus on the appearance, rather than the meaning, of works of art allows one to identify and formulate a methodological position, one that is based on established skills and techniques for engaging with the visual field and the object world; namely, experimental methods of study based on practice which now constitutes a key debate in the field of contemporary art and design knowledge production. Thirdly, and more importantly, it is Baudrillard who provides us with a caveat, the fourth rule: seduction will seduce everything, including any attempts to study it, for it resists and subverts efforts at systematization whatever the approach taken. Seduction is eternal and its mastery, impossible (Baudrillard, 1988). Seductive practices as distinct from the phenomenon, however, call seduction into play instead of identifying it and naming it. Through summoning seduction, these practices redefine our relationship to it, as perhaps seducers, seducees or observers of a seductive process. Finally, in order to study the seductive characteristics of works of art, the friction between Baudrillard’s theory of seduction and psychoanalysis’ position could be reduced by thinking of both art and psychoanalysis as practices. The relationship between a desiring subject (the analysand, the viewer) and a seductive object (the analyst, the artwork) is of special relevance here, as its exchanges and its processes offer a model for the exploration of seductive practices, drawing on its relational, mechanistic and subjective aspects. Thus, a strategy enabling the work of art to become the cause of desire, particularly in the gallery space, can begin to emerge.

REFERENCES Adams, P. (1991). The art of analysis: Mary Kelly’s ‘Interim’ and the Discourse of the analyst. October, 58, 81–96.

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All men are the same (Todos los hombres sois iguales). (1994). [DVD] Directed by Manuel Gómez Pereira. Spain: Ventura Distribution Basgen, B., & Blunden, A. (2004). Encyclopedia of Marxism Glossary of Terms: Commodification. Retrieved June 11, 2005 from http://www.marxists.org/glossary/ terms/c/o.htm Baudrillard, J. (1980). Les abîmes superficiels. In Maurice Olender and Jacques Sojcher La seduction (pp. 197–207). Paris: Aubier Montaigne. Baudrillard, J. (1987). The Evil Demon of Images. Sydney: Power Institute Publications. Baudrillard, J. (1988). The Ecstasy of Communication. New York, NY: Semiotext(e). Baudrillard, J. (1990). Seduction. New York, NY: Saint Martin’s Press. doi:10.1007/978-1-349-20638-4 Baudrillard, J. (1993). The Transparency of Evil. London: Verso. Baudrillard, J. (1996). The System of Objects. London: Verso. Baudrillard, J. (1999). Fatal Strategies. London: Pluto Press. Baudrillard, J. (2005). The Conspiracy of Art. New York, NY: Semiotext(e). Butler, R. (1999). Jean Baudrillard. The defence of the real. London: Sage. Butler, R. (2005). Baudrillard’s light writing or photographic thought. International Journal of Baudrillard Studies, 2(1). Retrieved June 21, 2016 http://www2.ubishops. ca/baudrillardstudies/vol2_1/butler.htm Calle, S., & Baudrillard, J. (1988). Suite Vénitienne/Please Follow Me. Seattle, WA: Bay Press. Civera, V. (1993). Habitación Anónima. Santander: Puerto de Santander Colección Ars. Cummings, N., & Lewandowska, M. (1995-2008). Chance Projects. Retrieved June 11, 2015 from http://www.chanceprojects.com/ Dachy, V. (2000). One or Two Things? A Few Remarks about Psychoanalysis and Art. In the Place of an Object. Journal of the Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research, 12(Special Issue), 17–23. Davis, D. (1994). A Theory for the 90s: Freud’s Seduction Theory in Historical Context. Psychoanalytic Review, 81(4), 627–640. PMID:7753935 183

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Krips, H. (1999). Fetish. An Erotics of Culture. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Lacan, J. (1981). The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book XI: The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis. New York, NY: W. W. Norton. Lacan, J. (1991). Le Séminaire, Livre VIII: Le Transfert. Paris: Edition du Seuil. Lacan, J. (2007). The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book XVII: The Other Side of Psychoanalysis. New York, NY: W. W. Norton. Laplanche, J. (1997). The Theory of Seduction and the Problem of the Other. The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 78, 653–666. PMID:9306181 Laplanche, J., & Pontalis, J. B. (1973). The Language of Psycho-analysis. London: The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis. Leader, D. (2002). Stealing the Mona Lisa: What Art Stops Us from Seeing. Washington, DC: Shoemaker & Hoard. Lees-Maffei, G. (2002). Italianità and Internationalism: Production, Design and Mediation at Alessi, 1976-96. Modern Italy, 7(1), 37–57. doi:10.1080/13532940220121834 Lloyd, P., & Snelders, D. (2003). What Was Philippe Starck Thinking of? Design Studies, 24(3), 237–253. doi:10.1016/S0142-694X(02)00054-6 Marina, J. A. (2007). Las Arquitecturas del Deseo: Una Investigación Sobre los Placeres del Espíritu. Barcelona: Anagrama. Marx, K. (1976). Capital (Vol. 1). London: Penguin. Marx, K., & Engels, F. (2004). The Communist Manifesto. London: Penguin Books. (Original work published 1848) Masson, J. M. (1984). The Assault on Truth: Freud’s Suppression of the Seduction Theory. London: Faber and Faber. McGowan, T. (2004). The End of Dissatisfaction? Jacques Lacan and the Emerging Society of Enjoyment. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Minton, A. (1946). All the Perfumes of America. American Speech, 21(3), 161–174. doi:10.2307/486753 Morgan, C. L. (1999). Starck. New York, NY: Universe Publishing. Nelson Garner, S. (1989). Freud and Fliess: Homophobia and Seduction. In D. Hunter (Ed.), Seduction and Theory. Readings of Gender, Representation and Rhetoric (pp. 86–109). Urbana and Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press. 185

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Nixon, M. (2005). On the Couch. October, 113, 39-76. Norman, D. A. (2004). Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things. New York, NY: Basic Books. North by Northwest . (1959) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Written by Ernest Lehman. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 130 minutes. [DVD: Warner Home Video] O’Doherty, B. (1999). Inside the White Cube. The Ideology of the Gallery Space. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Oakley, C. (2000). A Disturbance of Memory on the Acropolis–A Response. In S. Kivland and M. du Ry, In the Place of an Object. Journal of the Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research, 12(Special Issue), 141–160. Olender, M., & Sojcher, J. (Eds.). (1980). La Séduction. Paris: Aubier Montaigne. Osborne, P. (2005). How to Read Marx. London: Granta. Roazen, P. (2001). The Problem of Seduction. In The Trauma of Freud: Controversies in Psychoanalysis (pp. 1–14). Transaction Publishers. Robertson, S. (2006). Seduction, Sexual Violence, and Marriage in New York City, 1886–1955. Law and History Review, 24(2), 331–373. doi:10.1017/ S0738248000003357 Samuels, R. (1995). Art and the Position of the Analyst. In R. Feldstein, B. Fink, & M. Jaanus (Eds.), Reading Seminar XI: Lacan’s Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis (pp. 183-186). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Sebeok, T. A. (2001). Fetish signs. In Signs: An Introduction to Semiotics (pp. 115–126). Toronto: Toronto University Press. Stallabrass, J. (2004). Art Incorporated. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Whitely, N. (1994). High Art and the High Street. The ‘Commerce-and-culture’ Debate. In R. Keat, N. Whitely, & N. Abercrombie (Eds.), The Authority of the Consumer (pp. 119–137). London: Routledge. Wigley, M. (1996). Theoretical Slippage: The Architecture of the Fetish. Fetish: The Princeton Architectural Journal, 4, 88–129. Winnicott, D. W. (1989). Psychoanalytic Explorations. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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Wulf, C. (2005). From the Subject of Desire to the Object of Seduction: Image Imagination–Imaginary. International Journal of Baudrillard Studies, 2(2). Retrieved June 21, 2016 http://www2.ubishops.ca/baudrillardstudies/vol2_2/wulf.htm Žižek, S. (1989). The Sublime Object of Ideology. London: Verso. Žižek, S. (1991a). Looking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular Culture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Žižek, S. (1991b). For They Know Not What They Do: Enjoyment as a Political Factor. London: Verso. Žižek, S. (2006a). Jacques Lacan’s Four Discourses. Retrieved June 10, 2015 from http://www.lacan.com/zizfour.htm Žižek, S. (2006b). How to Read Lacan. London: Granta.

ENDNOTES

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3

There is here, of course, also a relation to colonialism which could be explored but which, due to the boundaries of this study, will here remain unexamined. For works of art that talk overtly about this process, see the collaborative works of Cummings & Lewandowska, 1995–2008. My translation. The original passage reads: ‘Le charme de la séduction est d’abord d’être un objet théorique non identifié, objet non analytique et qui par là fait échec à toute théorie-vérité, laissant place à la théorie-fiction et au plaisir de son exercice.’

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Chapter 9

Seduction and Surprise: Discovering Invisible Emotions for Commitments Dina Mendonça Instituto de Filosofia da Nova, Portugal

ABSTRACT The chapter explores the meaning of seduction from a situated approach to emotions by tracing the way surprise uncovers emotional traits that enable commitment. The adoption of a Situated Approach reveals how emotions are intrinsically tied to the situations from which they arise and the crucial role of surprise. The emotion of surprise is central for the value of experience because it amplifies other emotions as well as other traits, and details of the lived situations fixing the meaning of the lived experience. The examination of how various emotions belong to the family of surprise further explains the established differences between persuasion, manipulation and seduction. Ultimately the chapter shows that seduction asks for the recognition of various layers of emotional reality, and how they are made visible by the way in which seduction establishes commitments.

INTRODUCTION The chapter reveals how emotions that are part of the family of surprise (for example awe, wonder, startle, shock, etc.) are a crucial part of seduction and indicates how seduction enables different types of commitment depending on the reach of its emotional depth. The first part of the chapter introduces the Situated Approach DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-0525-9.ch009 Copyright ©2017, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

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to Emotions through De Sousa’s notion of paradigm scenarios (De Sousa, 1987), which is a wonderful tool to understand how emotions can be best understood by the notion of situation. Among other things, the fruitfulness and richness of the Situated Perspective points out how emotions are Janus faced because they give us information both about ourselves and about the world (De Sousa, 2007). Since emotions emerge from social interactions and relationships and are “dynamic processes that unfold over time and are situated in interactions, relationships, and ultimately in cultures” (Mesquita & Boiger, 2014, p. 300), they provide information not only about the source of the mechanism of the dynamic processes but also about its activity. That is, emotions provide a double mirror of the seducer and of the activity of seduction indicating how it is an ongoing emotional event that both reveals and sets processes in motion such that the seducer comes to light as well as how the process of seduction that makes the seduced tick. This section of the chapter ends by the recognition that the situated theoretical approach clearly shows how surprise is a fundamental emotion. The second part begins by taking Robinson’s comments about startle (Robinson, 1995) in order to make explicit different intensities and depth of surprise further justifying the differences between persuasion, manipulation and seduction (Cordoban, 2006). Thus, different levels and types of surprise will be linked to different types of emotional commitment and, consequently, will be differently connected to seduction. The chapter ends by suggesting that the connection between seduction and surprise lies at the heart of every emotional situation. People commit themselves when they surrender their heart and seduction is the art of reaching for people’s heart. This means that to understand seduction, and how it differs from manipulation and persuasion, is to identify how it taps into deep emotional cues and how when we are taken by surprise we can act in such ways as to commit to buying a product, reach a conclusion, establish relationships, and make our alliances. While the paper investigates the reasons why seduction play a very important role for the establishment of commitments it promises a way to better understand the process of emotion regulation and education of the emotion for by understanding how seduction works we attain more clarity about its crucial relevance for shared experience and how it both helps us to understand the world and ourselves.

THE SITUATED APPROACH TO EMOTIONS In The Rationality of Emotion, Ronald de Sousa puts forward the notion of paradigm scenario stating that it is through them that we are introduced to the vocabulary of emotion, and that these are later on in life supplemented and refined by literature (De Sousa, 1987, p. 182). He writes, “My hypothesis is this: We are made familiar 189

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with the vocabulary of emotion by association with paradigm scenarios. These are drawn first from our daily life as small children and later reinforced by the stories, art, and culture to which we are exposed. Later still, in literate cultures, they are supplemented and refined by literature. Paradigm scenarios involve two aspects: first, a situation type providing the characteristic objects of the specific emotion-type (where objects can be of the various sorts identified in chapter 5), and second, a set of characteristic or “normal” responses to the situation, where normality is first a biological matter and then very quickly becomes a cultural one” (De Sousa, 1987, p. 182). Though the suggestion that we become acquainted with the vocabulary of emotion through paradigm scenarios feels as an accurate description of the way in which we adopt our vocabulary for emotions, it is also important to specify that the story of how these paradigm scenarios are drawn is probably more complex. That is, the experience before the story telling is most likely crucial for emotional relevance of the stories such that there is the fixation of certain paradigm scenarios instead of others. However, it cannot be the case that emotional experiences simply reinforce these paradigm scenarios. It is more likely that there is a complex creative process between stories and daily life events in the constitution of paradigm scenarios. If we simplistically try to illustrate this learning process we will conclude that the dynamic process between live experiences and story telling show that stories provide an experimental laboratory of emotions (Mendonça, 2012b) and that they simultaneously point out possibilities of new paradigms, as well as complexity in already existing paradigms. Thus, for example, a toddler may begin to feel fear after a startling loud sound. After she is told a story where a character hears a loud noise and reacts similarly, the toddler will reinforces the paradigm of fear. More importantly, the toddler will be able to name the feeling as fear allowing her to verbally identify with the word ‘fear’ future events and stories. Therefore, stories with daily life events help us to construct paradigm scenarios by structuring and naming feelings, while simultaneously maintaining paradigm scenarios in an open way so that future stories and future life events can continue to contribute to their structure. Only this can explain that, as De Sousa writes, a “paradigm can always be challenged in the light of a wider range of considerations than are available when the case is viewed in isolation” (De Sousa, 1987, P. 187). The description of De Sousa’s paradigm scenarios (De Sousa, 1987) invites an interpretation of emotions as dynamic interactions that inform us about many different things, revealing how emotions are Janus faced because they give us information about ourselves and about the world (De Sousa, 2007). Pointing out that we learn emotions through paradigm scenarios shows that this learning process already includes great complexity, such that though fear can be described by indicating that it highlights a dangerous threat in the environment it is also the case that this description falls short of grasping the whole fearful situation. That is, though 190

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describing fear as the feeling of sensing danger is a succinct description to be used at times, it is short to properly describe what is happens in an emotional experience of fear in all its complexity. The notion of paradigm scenario indicates that to get a good grasp of the complex richness of an emotional experience one has to see the situated whole within which an emotion happens. Though a lot of theorists use emotions’ situated occurrence to better described them, it is only more recently that some philosophers have taken upon themselves to specifically use the notion of situation to explore the nature of emotion (Griffiths & Scarantino, 2009; Mendonça, 2012a; Stephen, 2012; Stephen, Walter & Wilutzky 2014). The notion of situation is best captured by our daily talk expressions such as when people say: “we have a situation at hand,” or “she was living a very difficult situation.” The meaning of the term situation aims to separate a specific episode from the constant flow of events, and is often traced by the occurrence of a disturbance in the regular course of experience. One of the ways to better understand the insight of the term situation is to follow a Deweyan perspective and his use of the term and think of emotions within a pattern of sentiment (Mendonça, 2012a). The author used such theoretical position showing that it makes it possible to describe emotions in all its complexity and yet it can also be used to focus on a specific aspect of the emotional pattern (Mendonça, 2012a). It may take those who experience the situation more or less time to determine the type of situation at hand. In “Pattern of Sentiment: Following a Deweyan Insight” the author illustrate the moment of identification of a situation with the example of the experience of grief and how it can take some time from receiving certain news to the conscious feeling of loss, and to the full integration of grief. Thus, we can see that the person who feels the emotion follows a complex process of collecting feelings, comparing and contrasting it with similar and different situations which enable the constructing of a narrative that projects and demands further subsequent actions (Mendonça, 2012a, p. 215-217). It must be pointed out that though the insights of looking at emotional processes in terms of an emotional pattern may be best illustrated with complex integrated emotional experience such as grief it is also the case that the pattern provides insights to read fruitfully other emotional experiences (Mendonça, 2012, p. 215/219). Adopting a Situated Approach to Emotions offers a wide variety of advantages. First, the pattern is a way to grasp the intentionality of emotions and avoid attaching them solely to the sentient subject. Second, it may provide a way to analyze more carefully the narrative structure of emotions, and better understand the importance of details in such narratives. Third, because every situation carries with it a family of emotions, it forces us to think of emotions as they appear: in bunches.

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Fourth, because the emotional situation entails families of emotions within a specific situation we can start to clarify some of the ambiguities attached to emotion words. Fifth, the Pattern allows for the emotional character of a situation to change with subsequent events as well as reflection upon it. Sixth, designing emotional situations in this manner opens the way for an explanation of emotional maturity, for as it was state above experiencing sad situations will hopefully change the effect of sadness when sadness is part of the family of an emotional situation of grief, opening a deeper understanding of meta-emotional processes. Seventh, it provides a more complex way to explain how emotions resonate. In the amazing capacity for empathy and resonance of emotions there is the mysterious fact that not all emotions resonate the same way. Finally, it offers a way to explain why certain emotions are clearer and more denotable than others (Mendonça, 2012a). The Situated Approach to Emotions has already provided luminous research outcomes. For instance, the use of the philosophical structure of the pattern of sentiment (Mendonça, 2012a) offered a further understanding of meta-emotions role in emotion theory (Mendonça, 2013a), and provided a new solution to the paradox of fiction (Mendonça, 2012b) and the paradox of suspense (Mendonça, 2013b). The richness of taking emotion as dynamic and active situational occurrences is already apparent and the novel hypothesis will promote a better understanding of the nature of emotions, its puzzles and provides significant links to establish dialogue not only with other philosophical issues as well as with different scientific fields of research that work on emotion theory and thus contribute for the further development of the study of emotion. More specifically for the matter at hand, adopting a situated perspective of emotions as just described enables us to recognize that at times emotion words refer to feeling within a specific emotional situation while at others it refers to the situation as a whole. That is, one may find feelings of sadness within a situation of grief in which it appears more like a perception type of activity and also find sadness as a feeling that labels the whole situation in which it appears more like a judgment type of activity (Mendonça, 2012, p. 219), while sadness may also appear as a mood underlying the situation in which it appears more like a mood type of emotional occurrence. That is, the adoption of a situated approach to emotions makes it possible to recognize that emotions are Janus faced such that they can provide information about the subject who experiences the emotion, and about the set of events which also make part of the emotional experience. It is within this theoretical approach that we can acknowledge that seduction is an ongoing emotional activity that reveals both the subject who seduces as well as those who are seduced and the commitment links between them. 192

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The description of the Situated Approach so far made is sufficient to show that the experience of fear can simplistically be described by showing the fragility of a certain aspect of the subject who feels fear as well as a dangerous trait of the situation he is part of. However, the Janus faced information requires a much more complex description of what is at stake to know if we want to keep at the simplistic level of description or if we want to move beyond and dig deeper into what information is being offered by the emotional experience. What is at stake in seduction is to establish a commitment about what is important and so when it comes to seduction the choice between holding a more complex description of the emotional pattern or a more simple description of the experience will depend on how deep the seduction occurs. However, the emotions revealed through seduction do not appear attached to labels that described them as either deep or superficial emotional processes. In fact, it is only by immersing ourselves in the process of seduction that we can see the depth of emotions and consequently the depth of our commitment to others. In order to show this the chapter will begin by presenting Robinson’s comments about startle (Robinson, 1995) in order to make explicit different intensities and depth of surprise which will prepare the stage to explain the differences between persuasion, manipulation and seduction (Cordoban, 2006). Thus, different levels and types of surprise will be linked to different types of emotional contagion and different types of emotional commitment and, consequently, will be differently connected to seduction.

SURPRISE, SURPRISE In “Startle” Jenefer Robinson argues that phenomena of emotional response are central to our conception of emotion and develops a model of emotional response that is based on the startle reaction (Robinson, 1995, p. 54). Robinson begins by describing how the startle response is a universal response that it produces changes in facial expression and a immediate galvanic skin response and cardiac changes. Since the startle response takes less than half a second people not only are often not aware of their response but, in addition, they cannot deliberately controlled it or successfully imitated it (Robinson, 1995, p. 55). As Robinson comments, philosophers of emotion may raise doubts about stating that the startle response belongs to the emotional spectrum as they tend to focus on emotions of complex cognitive structure such as pride. Nevertheless, Robinson successfully argues that the fact that the startle response has many of the important features of the more standard examples of emotions such as fear, anger, and joy and the fact that like those emotions the startle response is “characterized by a particular pattern of neural firings,

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by characteristic autonomic nervous system changes and by a characteristic facial expression” (Robinson, 1995, p. 56). In addition, Robinson shows that the startle response is a developmentally early form of fear and surprise (Robinson, 1995, p. 57), and that both Tomkins and Izard link startle with surprise identifying its role as a mode of shifting and interrupting the on going brain activity and refreshing the attention for new information as a way “to help prepare the individual to deal effectively with the new or sudden event and with the consequences of this event” (Izard, 1977, p. 281 as cited in Robinson, 1995, p. 57). One of the pertinent revelations of Robinson’s work concerning this chapter is that it shows that emotions can appear at different levels and that theorists must consider that the startle response is a form of surprise. Pointing out that emotions should be understood in terms of families of emotions, and that the startle response can be seen as a developmental early form of surprise belonging to the wider family of emotions of surprise such as astonishment, amazement, shock and awe. Thus, often when we refer to surprise we are in fact referring to a wide family of emotions identified by emotions which have the common trait of interrupting or suspending a certain activity redirecting the focus of attention to something new or unexpected (Mendonça, 2014). Thus, while in psychology surprise was mostly studied from the notion of startle reactions (Simons, 1996) we can now identify that its richness is most clearly captured when we localize it within a family of emotional responses of surprise that includes fright, perplexity, admiration and bewilderment. Darwin offers such complex reading when he writes that “[a]ttention, if sudden and close, graduates into surprise; and this into astonishment; and this into stupefied amazement. The latter frame of mind is closely akin to terror” (Darwin, 1890, p. 257) and thus shows that different types of surprise are pertinently connected to each other and can give rise to one another. Consequently, following Robinson’s proposal about the crucial importance of startle takes us to recognize the way in which emotions often refer to families of emotions indicating that there are different levels and intensities of the same emotional tone, and that though in “humans (and perhaps other species) the response is sometimes subjectively experienced as a recognizable ‘feelings’” (Robinson, 1995, p. 62), emotions’ three main features of 1. Bodily response; 2. Making something salient; and 3. What is salient being registered as significant for the general well-being (Robinson 1995, 62) refers to a scale and variation of degrees that is hard to capture in descriptions.

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Overall reinforcing that when we read or write the emotion-word of surprise we are often referring to a wide variety of intensity and levels that is not fully being described for the sake of clarity of the argument being put forward. For the sake of clarity we will continue to refer to surprise, however given the above description the chapter assumes that in the emotion word surprise we can include the whole of the emotions that make part of the family of emotions of surprise and include the different shades of these different surprise feelings and how they play different roles and effects of varying intensities at different moments. Surprise is an emotional state resulting from unexpected occurrences (either an event or a thought or feeling, of an action, etc.), which directs our attention to whatever surprised us and in this manner prepared us to be fully open to pay attention to something. In this way when we are surprised we are more capable of being caught by new possibilities, by new information, and by new awareness. Surprise represents the difference between expectations and reality, the gap between our assumptions and expectations about worldly events and the way those events actually turn out. This gap can be deemed an important foundation on which new findings are based since surprises can make people aware of their own ignorance. And the acknowledgement of ignorance can mean a window to seek and form new knowledge and a new sense of future. Therefore, surprise is intrinsically connected to the new in fundamental ways since it breaks attention from previous activity creating the condition to pay attention to new information and it directs attention to new occurrences. The physiological response of surprise falls under the category description of the startle response and, as noted earlier, the main function of surprise is to interrupt an ongoing action and reorient attention to a new and possibly significant event. There is an automatic redirection of focus to the new stimuli and, for a brief moment, this causes tenseness in the muscles, especially of the neck. Thus, surprise is an emotion that is immediately felt on the body and its phenomenological fastness makes it hard to be consciously ignored though it nevertheless remains hard to control and fake. People feel in their body how surprise directs the attention to what was surprising and how it leaves them open for new information and new self-awareness. Darwin describes the physiological change when he writes that, “[t]here is still another and highly effective cause, leading to the mouth being opened, when we are astonished, and more especially when we are suddenly startled. We can draw a full and deep inspiration much more easily through the widely open sudden sound or sight, almost all the muscles of the body are involuntary and momentarily thrown into strong action, for the danger, which we habitually associate with anything unexpected” (Darwin, 1890, p. 262). Darwin’s quotation shows why it is hard to ignore the way surprise is felt on our own body and he also indicates that it is hard for others not

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see our surprise writing that “a surprised person often raises his opened hands high above his head, or by bending his arms only to the level of his face” (Darwin, 1890, p. 264). In conclusion, surprise is a type of emotion that cannot easily be ignored by us or by others, and which is hidden with difficulty making the way it appears in the body easily interpreted (Darwin, 1980, p. 265). However, to fully understand the impact of surprise it is crucial to see how it is connected with other emotional experiences for emotions seldom appear in isolation. In fact, the phenomenological immediacy of surprise is not simply connected to the way in which it is imprinted on the body but also to the way it connects to other emotions. Izzard, for example, describes how surprise prepares the organism for subsequent emotions (Izzard, 1977). Likewise, Kumar (1996) explains how surprise has an amplificatory role in memory such that a surprising event is more easily retained (Aitalarán, 2003, 43), and other studies show that surprise amplifies other emotions (Vahamme, 2002) possibly because of the way it forces focalization of attention. Thus, the emotion of surprise seems to have an amplificatory capacity in general to such an extent that Kumar suggests that surprise is a form of adaptation to the environment and to life situations that enables us to assimilate the necessary knowledge required to deal with those situations and with the environment in general (Kumar, 1996). Similarly, Izzard takes surprise as a way to prepare the organisms that feels to deal with new and unexpected events, and argues that it is of crucial importance for the process of evolution providing the species with a mechanism to deal with change in a successful way (Aitalarán, 2003, p. 43). One of the resulting consequences of this central location of surprise within the emotional spectrum is that though surprise has one core appraisal format, that is appraising something as new and unexpected, is also enables dealing with shifts experience. That is, by amplifying subsequent events it helps us to build mechanisms to deal with various kinds of change enabling the prediction of response beyond surprise, such as confusion, interest, fight-or-flee or integration. And, perhaps more importantly, surprise is at the core of continuing to be surprised (Mendonça, 2014), maintaining the mechanisms for dealing with change alive and functioning. This means that the way in which seduction is crucially linked to surprise is also the way in which we seduce and are seduced by others as to maintain the mechanism for integrating and adapting to lively change of life. Thus, surprise will appear differently in different moments of seduction and project different types of seduction in ways that are so rich and varied that are most likely best captured in literary descriptions. That is, the general way in which surprise works as to participate in seduction lies at the heart or our ability to establish links to others as to be able to deal with the continual change of our environment.

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SURPRISE AND SEDUCTION Now seduction lives also through the ability to cause surprise in others and being surprised by others and, as Ridley-Duff points out (2010), it is an ongoing affair that appears in almost all walks of life since we live in an endless process of seeking for satisfying relationships and achievements that require us to probe and search constantly in ourselves and with others and consequently “[w]e constantly try to seduce each other for different reasons. Beyond seduction to satisfy our sexual desires, there are employers seducing employees (and vice versa), salespeople seducing customers, consultants seducing clients, advertisers seducing consumers, writers seducing readers, musicians seducing listeners, and academics, scientists, religious leaders and politicians presenting seductive versions of ‘the truth’” (Ridley-Duff, 2010, p. iii). In general seduction appears described as an intelligent move of manipulation in which people seduced are described as being tricked and deceived for the gain of that one who seduces. However, seduction is far more complex and in fact, as Robert Green describes, “[s]uccessful seductions begin with your character, your ability to radiate some quality that attracts people and stirs their emotions in a way that is beyond their control” (Green, 2003, p. 3), and thus to be successful a seduction seldom begins “with an obvious maneuver or strategic device” (Green, 2003, p. 3) for that would immediately arise suspicion and prevent seduction interaction. That is, seduction is distinct from manipulation even if it may incorporate at certain times and moments moves which are manipulative. Though both seduction and manipulation work on emotions in order to obtain their goals, manipulations are successful when there is an increase of unconscious processes while seductions require the seduced person to play the role of that who is being seduced and therefore to consciously participate, even if only partially, in the process of being seduced. At this point it may be helpful to distinguish seduction from manipulation and persuasion given that these three activities share the ability to make others follow and agree with those who manipulate, persuade and seduce them. While persuasion is a process in which someone influences another person, or persons, opinions and thoughts through communication and using language (Codoban, 2006, p. 151-152) with the use of formal thinking abilities such as giving reasons and building a reasonable argument. In persuasion the person who modifies their convictions and attitudes participates consciously and with responsibility in the process (Codoban, 2006, p. 152). And even when persuasion uses others means beyond fully conscious content, the overall outcome of persuasion requires that “it is mainly based on a logical address to consciousness: its content is primarily conscious.” (Codoban, 2006, p. 154) Surprise is here highly cognitive and is most fitting when it amplifies certain information and cognitive moves revealing the cognitive details pertaining to the opinion and the issues at stake. 197

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On the other hand, manipulation is based on processes which people perform without really thinking about them and so “[m]anipulation appeals to the cultural programming of the individual, to the basis of the stereotypes of thinking, frames and schemes, to what could be called a prior encoding of the individual.” (Codoban, 2006, p. 154) Therefore, manipulation works upon the ability to make people react by their automated and mindless habits and thus being prepared to say yes without thinking much about it. That is without considering if they are really willing to say yes and based upon a process which is overall partly unconscious (Codoban, 2006, p. 154). Here surprise works to distract and enable the unconscious processes of manipulation by either leaving the subject puzzled and confused or by focusing their attention elsewhere. In sum, the importance of the emotional role of surprise may be observed in persuasion as when surprise may be used to introduce a certain new information or shift of events using the amplificatory role of surprise to enable the subject to recognize and accept the cognitive impact of some information. In manipulation one is surprised without realizing that one is being distracted and leads to enhance certain information as to make the subject act on specific choices and turn them into blind habitual modes of action. As when marketing appeals to certain automatic behaviors as when appeals to security of a certain company make people trust the company without realizing that this is the emotional path they are following. However, in seduction the role of surprise and the way unconscious and conscious plays a role is more complex than it appears in both persuasion and manipulation. Codoban describes that though seduction was often examined from a moral and religious point of view, after Baudrillard there was a new perspective about seduction based on communication. Now seduction can be seen as the inverse of manipulation for it is not the subject to be seduced that is to be taken as an object and be maneuvered as an object but, inversely, the subject who seduces who offers himself as an object which needs the person seduced to be completed and whole (Codoban, 2006, p. 154). While in manipulation the created dynamic force of surprise is mostly used without consciousness and in persuasion the process is forcefully conscious, in seduction the role of surprise must incorporate both aspects of the mind in a type of dance where seducer and seduced have to surprise each other as to combine intentions, goals, traits, weaknesses and strengths and to become united as a whole. One could perhaps suggest that the test to verify if there is seduction is to verify if the move is bringing meaning to those engaged such that the seducer is also being surprised by the move of seduction about his or her own qualities and if, in turn, there is also surprise about the other persons’ qualities and revelation on the connection between the two parties. Therefore, the role of surprise is clearly different. In persuasion surprise amplifies subsequent information and emotional processes for better grasp of moves and works as a strategy of grasping attention as well as 198

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one to reinforce memory about certain information. In manipulation, surprise aims to provide attention focus in a way that lies underneath consciousness. And finally in seduction the role of surprise is mixed: it aids similarly to the way it does in both persuasion and manipulation (thus perhaps that is why one may identify moments of seduction in both previous described practices), and it promotes moments of pause both because it reveals something new and unexpected about the seduced and about the seducer. As Green writes, “Every seduction has two elements that you must analyze and understand: first, yourself and what is seductive about you; and second, your target and the actions that will penetrate their defenses and create surrender. The two sides are equally important. If you strategize without paying attention to the parts of your character that draw people to you, you will be seen as a mechanical seducer, slimy and manipulative. If you rely on your seductive personality without paying attention to the other person, you will make terrible mistakes and limit your potential.” (Greene, 2003, p. xxiv) This ability of surprise to cause suspension and pause and invite thinking within seduction goes beyond the activity of thinking and reflecting that arises in the formal and conscious moves within persuasion. The complex dynamics that partner dances require is a good metaphor for the type of reflection that happens in seduction. Karobis explores the phenomenological idea of natural attitude in the field of dancing and argues that seduction is a natural tendency to lose the notion of body-self in pertinent interaction with someone else’ body in a article entitled “Controlling Gaze, Chess Play and Seduction in Dance: Phenomenological Analysis of the Natural Attitude of the Body in Modern Ballroom Dance” (Karobis, 2007). Building on the notion of body schema of Shaun Gallagher (1995), Karobis suggests what he calls the phenomenon of seduction in which “the other body appears near mine, it ‘seduces’ the parts of my body and destroys the acquired habitual unity of the body” (Karobis, 2007, p. 338), making it be a new synthesis of the movements of the two different bodies into a unity in which the egocentric natural tendency of the single body is destroyed to be reconstructed with another body into a pair that dances together. One of the interesting aspects of this phenomenon of seduction is “that the strong power is not necessary in order to destroy a habitual unity of the body-schema. Often it is enough to glance from the side and this unity is destroyed” (Karobis, 2007, p. 339). That is, the desired unity and the necessary deconstruction for the renewed unity can be subtle, barely apprehended by the outside observer and still be certain and decisive for those who participate in the unity born out of seduction. Likewise, the thinking done within seduction appears as a type of dance that can be subtle to the external eye but concrete and certain to the participants who seal their seduction with a sense of unity given by a commitment which does not require a clear cut contract.

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SEDUCTION AND COMMITMENT Seduction invites thinking in a way that manipulation does not and in a way that goes beyond the way in which persuasion promotes thinking. The suggestion of the chapter is that seduction demands thinking in a way that brings forth commitments in a move that goes beyond what people need to say to each other when they establish contracts because seduction uncovers deep emotional traits that by being revealed establish strong commitments between the participants of seduction. If we conceive of seduction as a move in which people reveal their traits and character and by doing so attract others, we also can observe that seduction can be done at different emotional levels. One can be seduced at a more superficial level or be taken at a deeper emotional connection or even be emotionally connected at different and multiple levels. And since surprise works at different levels it sometimes dwells on deep emotional waters. The depth of the reach of seduction arrowed by surprise is only made visible by the commitments it demands and can only be identified by reflection upon the outcome of seduction itself. Thus, seduction invites thinking at more than one level though for sure the deep emotional level of connection in seduction is that which most demands thinking about our own identity, the identity of others and the meaning of the relationship to be possibly established from seduction. When people seduce others they are really inviting them to join in under a specific type of commitment. However, it is a commitment that must be established though thinking and closer to a sense of insightful intuition. That is, the commitment is not the outcome of formal thinking as in persuasion. It is best understood as a leap of faith in which the outcome of the seduction in to join another in a specific position, action or mode of being that, not being stated and formally described, unites two or more people in experience. The illustration of this effect of seduction is perhaps best seen in romantic seduction. Sometimes in romantic seduction the way in which people state or omit their wishes and desires is a crucial element of the intensity of commitment. If the seducer expresses a wish and the seducer quickly agrees to it in words, it may offer a step for a further commitment for a wish to be fulfilled but for the commitment of seduction silence is crucial, for words may also falsify the desired sense of commitment for the desired unity. Therefore, one important element of seduction is to surprise the seducer by committing to the outcome of the desired wish as to show attention without resorting to the expression of the desired wish in words. Showing that the connection of seduction to commitment is a trait of the seduction move itself, just as the above described dancers coordinate the movements of their bodies and gestures in unity. However, there are different shades and types of commitment and it is marked both by the ability of the participants to seduce each other, as well as their ability to recognize the deep emotional traits and events that are being disclosed by the encounter. 200

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The issue of deep emotions is still to be fully analyzed by theories of emotions. In Sound Sentiments (2005) Pugmire, who is one of the few authors who reflects upon it, establishes depth in terms of the truth of judgment and concerns at stake. He writes, “A consequence of this would be that emotions can be adequate to their subjects morally. And it does not seem that an emotion can be profound unless it is morally adequate, where its subject has a moral status. Its moral adequacy can turn on the quality of the feeling, which give it the specific character that may serve as an analogue to a value. Thus, for instance, sentimental emotion strikes us both as hollow and as contemptible” (Pugmire, 2005, p. 63). And consequently connects depth of emotion as something that mirrors the excellence of character (Pugmire, 2005, p. 64) and adds its Janus face reach by pointing out that “[t]hrough such emotion a person participates as fully as possible both in his own life and in that of the world through which he passes. By the same token, deep emotion is a reflection of the world” (Pugmire, 2005, p.64). However, Pugmire himself acknowledges that it is possible to fake emotions, and that we fall in processes of self-deception about our own emotions. Pugmire points out that we mask uncomfortable emotions and those that portray us negatively when he writes that “[c]hoice will center on emotions that promise advantage of power (e.g. pity), moral advantage (e.g. forgiveness, and above all, righteous anger) or that reassuringly affirm desirable personal qualities (e.g. compassion, remorse)…The trapping of one emotion can serve to mask another: righteous indignation rather than envy or spite; zealous commitment to a cause that offers a feeling of belonging or of transcendence of the commonplace and the compromised; pity instead of disdain; solicitous concern as opposed to prurient fascination. Notice that the masking emotions tend at once to resemble and to deny the masked emotions” (Pugmire, 1994, p. 114). Pugmire would certainly agree that no one aims to have a bad character and that even if some people are capable concluding that they have a weak character, there are all sorts of cognitive and emotional mechanisms to diminish its impact and avoid the hardship of such truth as to prevent change to occur. Pugmire may reply to this objection explaining that he is assuming that excellence of character includes sincerity, honesty and genuine emotional processes, and it is therefore safe from these emotions perils. And add that whenever one testifies a deliberate move to change one’s character for the better a spark of excellence of character can be acknowledged. Nevertheless, since it is hard to imagine someone identifying the excellence of one’s own character given that humbleness is part of the excellence of character and that, in addition, we tend to carry a charitable reading of ourselves, the criteria that Pugmire establishes for identifying the depth of emotion seems too demanding and simultaneously insufficient to recognize an emotion as deep.

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A more down to earth attempt of defining depth of emotion will grant that deep emotions are ones that are identified below the surface and somehow structural, indicating the types of emotional processes that if shaken the whole world and the whole person will tremble. Also, it seems reasonable to establish that depth of emotion comes in levels such there is not just a simple shallow vs. deep but instead layers of shallow and depth, and therefore the possibility of more than one layer. When the deep is revealed, the more superficial (re)appears, and the superficial become also visibly as superficial. That is, when the deep emotional traits appear invisible emotions appear as visible and those that were apparently visible are seen through another light. If we take up the exercise of thinking of what can count as these deeper levels we find these emotions that are: 1. Connected to crucial aspects of our life (e.g. people, ideas, objects); 2. Connected to crucial events (e.g. childhood experiences, traumatic experiences); 3. Connected to difficult aspects of ourselves and the world to face (e.g. that one can feel envy, one can be mistaken, that the world is indifferent to our singular existence; that commitment to love is being open to suffering, etc.); 4. Connected to emotional habits that sustain emotional life structure (e.g. righteous indignation may promote a sense of self-worth that a hard life may feel is necessary for daily function; being sad, miserable and pessimistic makes the events that go well feel thrilling); and as identified by Pugmire, connected to excellence of character (Pugmire, 2005). Discovering the deep emotional layers is only possible because we establish relationship with others and consequently the outcomes of seduction are an important way of acknowledging theses invisible emotions with the establishment of commitments. This means that the people we feel close to, those with whom we establish links of commitment and the people we find hard to connect seductively are very important keys to fully understand others and ourselves, and the functioning of the world. Seduction is no doubt one of the ways in which we uncover others people’s deep emotional traits and our own, and also the way others reveals our own deep emotional traits. Once these deep emotional layers become visible people are able to commit with others in all areas of human interaction and the way the world is becomes visible because of the established social interactions.

CONCLUSION The underlying suggestion of the chapter is that the connection between how seduction surprises us by unfolding different levels of emotional depth and how it enables 202

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the establishment of commitment lies at the heart of every emotional situation. People commit themselves when they surrender their heart, and seduction is the art of reaching for people’s heart. This means that to understand how seduction works is to identify how people and things tap into deep emotional cues and how we are taken by surprise by experiencing such emotional episodes. The way we are taken makes us commit to many different things from buying a product, to establishing relationships, and also in making our alliances both in friendship and in the workplace. While the chapter investigated the reasons why seduction play a very important role for the establishment of commitments it also promises to provide a way to better understand the process of emotion regulation and education of the emotion for by understanding seduction we attain more clarity about its crucial relevance for shared experience and how it both helps us to understand the world and ourselves.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT This work would not have been possible without the financial support of Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (SFRH/BPD/102507/2014), and IFILNOVA for necessary backup for research activity.

REFERENCES Aitalarán, J. (2003). A Influência da Surpresa no processo emocional de formação da satisfação do consumidor. Master Thesis Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul. Retrieved on August 20th, 2015 from https://goo.gl/Adz91m Baker, L. R. (1998). The first person perspective: A test for Naturalism. American Philosophical Quarterly, 35(4), 27–348. Baudrillard, J. (1990). Seduction (B. Singer, Trans.). New York: St. Martin’s Press. doi:10.1007/978-1-349-20638-4 Codoban, A. (2006). From persuasion to manipulation and seduction (A very short history of global communication).SCIRI Conference – JSRI, 14, 151-158. Coplan, A. (2012). Understanding Empathy: Its Features and Effects. In A. Coplan & P. Goldie (Eds.), Empathy. Philosophical and Psychological Perspectives (pp. 3–18). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. De Sousa, R. (1987). The Rationality of Emotion. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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De Sousa, R. (1990). Emotions, Education and Time. Metaphilosophy, 21(4), 434–446. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9973.1990.tb00543.x De Sousa, R. (2007). Truth, Authenticity, and Rationality. Dialectica, 61(3), 323–345. doi:10.1111/j.1746-8361.2007.01104.x Gallagher, S., & Cole, J. (1995). Body Schema and Body Image in a Deafferented Subject. Journal of Mind and Behavior, 16, 369–370. Griffiths, P., & Scarantino, A. (2009). Emotions in the Wild: The Situated Perspective On Emotion. In P. Robbins & M. Aydede (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Situated Cognition (pp. 437–453). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Hatfield, E., Cacioppo, J. T., & Rapson, R. L. (1993). Emotional contagion. New York: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9781139174138 Hsee, C., Hatfield, E., Carlson, J. G., & Chemtob, C. (1990, October). (l99l). The effect of power on susceptibility to emotional contagion. Cognition and Emotion, 4(4), 327–340. doi:10.1080/02699939008408081 Hsee, C., Hatfield, E., & Chemtob, C. (1992, June). (l992). Assessments of emotional states of others: Conscious judgments versus emotional contagion. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 11(2), 119–128. doi:10.1521/jscp.1992.11.2.119 Izzard, C. E. (1977). Human emotions. New York: Plenum. doi:10.1007/978-14899-2209-0 Karoblis, G. (2007). Controlling Gaze, Chess Play and Seduction in Dance: Phenomenological Analysis of the Natural Attitude of the Body in Modern Ballroom Dance. Janus Head, 9(2), 329–343. Kumar, A. (1996). Costumer delight: creating and maintaining advantage. Bloomington: Indiana University. (Unpublished Doctoral dissertation). School of Business, Indiana University. Mendonça, D. (2012a). Pattern of Sentiment-following a Deweyan suggestion. Transactions of Charles Peirce Society, 48(2), 209–227. doi:10.2979/trancharpeirsoc.48.2.209 Mendonça, D. (2012b). Absolutely Positively Feeling that Way and More – Paradox of Fiction and Alexander’s Stories. In P. Costello (Ed.), Philosophy and Children’s Literature (pp. 41–62). Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Mendonça, D. (2013a). Emotions about Emotions. Emotion Review, 5(4), 390–397. doi:10.1177/1754073913484373 204

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Mendonça, D. (2013b). Existential Feelings – How Cinema Makes Us Feel Alive. Cinema - Journal of Philosophy and the Moving Image. Retrieved on August 20th, 2015 from http://cjpmi.ifl.pt/3-contents Mendonça, D. (2014). Surpresa e Identidade. In J. V. Brás & M. N. Gonçalves (Eds.), O Corpo – Memória e Identidade (pp. 49–68). Lisboa: Edições Universitárias Lusófonas. Mesquita, B., & Boiger, M. (2014). Emotions in Context: A Sociodynamic Model of Emotions. Emotion Review, 6(4), 298–30. doi:10.1177/1754073914534480 Pugmire, D. (2005). Sound Sentiments. Integrity of Emotions. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press. doi:10.1093/0199276897.001.0001 Riddley-Duff, R. J. (2010). Emotion, seduction and intimacy: alternative perspectives on human behaviour. Seattle, WA: Silent Revolution Series. Libertary Editions. Robinson, J. (1995). Startle. The Journal of Philosophy, 92(2), 53–74. doi:10.2307/2940940 Simons, R. C. (1996). Boo! Culture, experience and the startle reflex. New York: Oxford University Press. Stephan, A. (2012). Emotions, Existential Feelings, and their Regulation. Emotion Review, 4(2), 157–162. doi:10.1177/1754073911430138 Stephan, A., Walter, S., & Wilutzky, W. (2014). Emotions beyond brain and Body. Philosophical Psychology, 27(1), 65–81. doi:10.1080/09515089.2013.828376 Vanhamme, J. (2002). L’influence de la surprise sur la satisfaction des consommateus: une expérimentation pilote. In Actes de Conférence de l’Association Française du Marketing (pp. 17–43). Lille: Association Française du Maketing. Vanhamme, J., & Snelders, D. (1998). The role of surprise in satisfaction judgments. Journal of Comsumer Satisfaction. Disatisfaction and Complaining Behavior, 54(6), 1063–1070.

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Chapter 10

Social Psychology:

The Seduction of Consumers John G. Wilson Assumption University, Thailand

ABSTRACT In this chapter, we investigate the recent situation concerning the seduction of consumers by advertising and the media. A new plethora of media-organised conglomerates is attempting to monopolise our attention and steer our emotions, opinions and choices towards increased consumption through imposed wants in the interest of gross profits for a semi-invisiblised few. Herein we consider: the colonisation of public places (advertising), the work/spend cycle, increased work at the cost of leisure; impression management, status-conscious and conspicuous consumption, reflective versus pre-reflective thinking in consumer choices, the early recruitment of children, how human emotions can become the fuel of overconsumption, classbased emotions and fashion consumption, obsessions with body image, the evasion and silencing of criticism by the corporate media. The approach is one founded in critical theory - a perspective that describes the individual as reciprocally constituted by the society in which she lives, rather than as a passive entity existing prior to socialisation. It seeks to reveal the seduction of our subjectivities (running marketing strategies ‘from within’) as contrasted with the value-free, ‘objective’ approach of much contemporary social psychology. Contemporary theoreticians in sociology and consumer studies, including Pierre Bourdieu and Juliet Schor, are cited along with deeper philosophical perspectives from the earlier philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre, complete with references from contemporary books and journals.

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-0525-9.ch010 Copyright ©2017, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

Social Psychology

Conflict is the original meaning of being-for-others. – Jean Paul Sartre

INTRODUCTION In this chapter we look at the seduction of consumers by the media, mostly advertising. The main argument here is that seduction is not simply a one-to-one phenomenon between localised individuals of wicked intent and unequal intelligence. But rather that on the mass level (in the sphere of social psychology) we are all subject to seduction through a plethora of media-organised conglomerates monopolising our attention and steering our emotions, opinions and choices in every public sphere. Seventeenth and eighteenth century theorists made the assumption that consumer goods serve an essentially utilitarian purpose; i.e. the provision of all that is necessary for human welfare (Smith, 1776; Marx, 1867). This was the beginning of a ‘cultural studies’ approach where humans were regarded as objects, or recipients in a causal process of supply and demand, interacting with each other like natural forces. But this view needs reconsidering because most goods today are not necessary for human survival; many goods and services are marketed to elicit desire. Organisational structures seem to operate like authorless impersonal forces and are ubiquitous. Many contemporary wants have been researched, conceived and manufactured by these invisible marketing specialists within an advertising industry that seeks to expand their market sectors in the interests of prosperity for an oligarchical managerial culture, and massive profits—for a select and invisiblised few. Much psychology is based on the liberal idea that the individual exists antecedently to the environment in which she lives and is subject to causal processes much as the above mechanistic model proposes (see McDonald & Wearing, 2003, pp 2-20). Yet, by contrast, the critical approach regards the individual as both a recipient and an instigator in social affairs. Originating in Germany in the Frankfurt School, critical theorists regard the individual as constituted by the society in which she lives and acts as a responsible agent in its production and maintenance: there is a constant interaction between self and society (Held, 1980). By way of example, some marketing theorists suggest, to some extent, that a brand’s assets are created by the consumers themselves (Bengtson & Östberg, 2004). Furthermore, critical theory considers consumer culture as a manufactured entity itself, the product and instigator of broadly self-protecting middle-class ideology, which, in turn, can be used to limit human freedom (Simons, 2006; Tyson, 2015). Critical theorists propose a form of self-reflective comprehension involving both common understanding of everyday issues plus a theoretical explanation which aims to reduce mystification and entrapment in systems of ideological domination or cognitive dependence. In our time, this is often linked to insincere and fabricated social relations perpetuated 207

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by us all: overseen by a manipulative and oligarchical media that creates slants to promote the interests of the proprietors, perpetuating conditions of social alienation for the less-successful, the emargination of the intellectually dissident, the muting of ethnic and cultural groups; all currently manifest as a general destruction of our sense of community involving increased isolation, employment precarity, dismay amongst peers, psychological distress - all of which can be happily ignored by the ‘objectivity’ of neo-liberal academics funded by the organisations that have an interest in keeping things exactly as they are. Social psychology prides itself on being ‘objective’ - a theoretical stance that requires no ethical standpoints or personal qualms about human suffering—positions that will glide over widening social inequalities and increased frustration in the contemporary workplace. More personally involved theoreticians, such as Juiet Schor (Shor, 1991, 1996), point out that our current consumption lifestyles are responsible for increased planetary degradation with a concurrent decline of community, and that we have exchanged our free leisure time for more work time to fund increased spending. Moreover, the critical approach will analyse proffered and (subsequently) self-imposed models of self-identity that so often prove inimical to human welfare by increasing local isolation, alienation exacerbated by the media-backed ‘skipping over’ of individual situatedness and local community welfare. The ‘cultural studies’ approach (Bordo, 1997; Barker, 2012), regards female consumers as an essentially passive audience who are victims of the persuasive ideological messages being broadcast by advanced liberal capitalism. By contrast, mid-20th century theoreticians such as Pierre Bourdieu maintain there is an inculcation of objective social structures into the subjective, mental experience of all of us, since we are all non-optionally embedded in a prevailing culture where norms and values are frequently steered by a corporate oligarchy within the news media and advertising. And yet we are all voluntary participants in this process. Much of the literature shows that consumers are not just empty dupes awaiting guidance and instruction - the process is significantly interactive (Gabriel & Lang, 1995; Arnould & Thompson, 2005). As prominent UK theoretician Anthony Giddens points out, individuals are increasingly free to choose how they behave - who they want to be - within a post-war prosperity and non-traditionalist outlook that provides wider options than grandparents or previous institutions could provide (Giddens, 1990) such that we are now situationally forced to create our own self identities as traditional values of the past no longer hold sway (Giddens, 1991). Within this notion, structure and agency cannot be conceived as apart from each other. But these ideas are not new. French intellectuals since the 30s have been arguing that human consciousness can be described in terms of a disquieting lack – an existential inessentiality – and that we all try to ‘fill’ ourselves with what we have 208

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and do so that, ontologically, our condition is ‘metastable’- wayward and unfulfilled, the experience of ‘having’, in our time, as enjoying more and more the fruits of a consumer society, ‘doing’ as the adoption of lifestyles inextricably interwoven within behavioural patterns of consumption, and ‘being’ as the adoption of poorly conceived and partially implanted identities (Sartre, 1939, pp 577-8; Baudrillard, 1998). The individual is thus both a receiver and transmitter of current values dominated by a multi-million-pound advertising industry, itself embedded within a corporate media structure and governed by an indiscernible few. Those at the top have vested interests in the propagation of preferred consumption lifestyles—i.e. those which guarantee increased spending and profits in a ‘work and spend’ culture where consumption is the driving wheel of an economy which, in turn, benefits those with the most power and control.1 Yet personal values and self-esteem are managed by the advertising industry which now, through its financial force majeure, determines news coverage and program content in the US nationwide media, ironically insisting ‘freedom of choice’ still being regulated by ‘consumer sovereignty’. But these assertions are misleading, as we shall see. We are all subject to seduction through media-organised conglomerates, managing opinion through unrepresentative, truncated and biased presentations that appeal more to gut emotional responses than informed opinion (Illouz, 2009, p. 377). For example, since the 80s wave of privatisation in the UK, the instigators of this change remain largely unseen, but their influence is felt by selective dominance in certain discourse fields aiming at the exclusion of others (Thompson, 1995, pp.119-148; Gillmor, 2004, pp.110-135). Media workers are no longer free to disseminate multi-perspective viewpoints or voice their own interpretation—they are forced to conform to a covert (and increasingly overt) ‘party line’ dictated by the new proprietors, on penalty of being passed over for promotion or losing their jobs (Hanlin, 1992; Simon, 2015). Media seduction is maintained by induced competition. According to prominent French theoretician, Pierre Bourdieu, we are all in competition with each other for social capital – a term distinguishing social from economic power. For Bourdieu, individuals occupy a position in a multidimensional social space; which is not only defined by membership of a social class, but by any appearance that can be claimed within existing social relations. This enlarged notion of a person’s ‘assets’ comprises an ongoing negotiation of social networks, which Bourdieu showed could be used to separate people from each other and propagate inequality. The resulting individual habitus (social lifeworld) is always a mixture of diffuse and multiple engagements (Bourdieu 1984, 1986, pp. 241-58). Habitus refers to often unconsciously acquired values, dispositions and expectations within contiguous social groups, obtained and disseminated throughout contacts in everyday life. It is the ‘socially acquired schemata’, ‘the kind of personality one lives in’ as encouraged by a dialectical relationship between the individual and the environment. 209

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Ditzfield and Showers (2013) explain this revised concept of self as shifting among multiple selves that drive behaviour across diverse situations. Self-esteem, therefore, will be context-dependent and upgraded or downgraded in accordance with situational factors, each varying in affective intensity. However, approval or rejection will modify valenced self-beliefs compartmentalised or integrated according to a global self-esteem much influenced by concurrent state self-esteem. Habitus is, therefore, quite a fragile construction perceived in accordance with fluctuating socio-economic class, gender, epoch, ethnicity and location. A particular habitus is easily fractured by devastation (war, exclusion, sickness, poverty). Advertising and the media have latched on to such truths and, since much is in a fluid state, attempts are constantly made to influence each individual’s capacity for self-enhancement via relentless pressure recommending lifestyles concerning appearance, consumption, proprietorship and practices.2 In contemporary society we are all pressed to become victims of affluenza: a term denoting addiction to wealth and the ever-increasing consumption of material goods with their ostentatious display. For us, in this chapter, the foregoing will be closely aligned to the idea of ‘conspicuous consumption’, a term indicating how one may lay claim to social and cultural capital through a public display of one’s modes of consumption, ranging from expensive chocolates to the new hatchback (Veble, 1994; Schor, 1998, pp.43-64; McDonald & Wearing, 2013). A consumption lifestyle cannot simply be explained simply as a mass phenomenon for it is accomplished through the agency of individuals, especially according to the perspective that argues consumers exercise an ultimate sovereignty through personal choice (Sassatelli, 2007, pp. 57-9). Yet Bourdieu opposed this idea of ‘Rational Choice Theory’ as being a misconception of how social agents really operate (Bourdieu & Waquant, 1992.p.126, Wagner, 2000; Witteck, Snijders & Nee, 2013). For Bourdieu, social agents do not, reflectively, calculate according to consciously posited rational criteria. Rather, they operate according to a prereflective, practical, on-the-spur logic combined with instinctual dispositions for on-the-fly notions of self improvement. In his An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology, Bourdieu contends social agents act in response to an intuitive ‘feel for the game’ in accordance with their socially acquired sense of habitus. Furthermore, his conception of doxa, a term denoting a partial and colloquialised knowledge of that for which one is not fully informed, refers to another acquired, fundamental, deep-founded, unconscious set of beliefs and values, unreflectively assumed as self-evident universals, that will, in turn, inform an agent’s thoughts and actions within a particular social field, especially in the case of consumption (Bourdieu, 1992, 1997). The term ‘doxa’ is borrowed from ancient Greek and means ‘to seem’, ‘to accept’, as in the case of commonly held beliefs and popular opinion. Beliefs originating in doxa are not the product of science, conceptual analysis, academic debate, spe210

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cialised research and so on. Doxa is more likely to be correlated to the ‘zeitgeist’ as a temporal and culture-specific phenomenon, belonging to but one epoch and highly dependent on ‘that which is in circulation’; moreover, it is not conversant with contrastive outlooks as held by sub-cultures including, ethnic and cultural minorities, youth culture, specialised occupations, intellectuals, religious and political minorities. Doxa represents what is publicised and taken for granted in society. It defines what is accepted (or unaccepted) in any universe of discourse. Unsurprisingly, doxa, in our time, is much cultivated and shaped by the mass media—especially advertising. It is this chapter’s task to explain how such a process actually occurs. In the case of brand management and consumer compliance, marketers want to create what Marshall (2002) defines as an ‘inter-textual commodity’: a mediatic space that anticipates the choices and actions of consumers, situating them within an intertextual space operating inside a number of more or less precise coordinates, all shareable within the public domain. Within those coordinates, consumers are ‘free’ to produce the shared meanings and micro-social approvals that the branded good will construct in their lives.” (Arvidsson 2005, p. 245; 248). Thus, one’s favourite coffee – perhaps a little more expensive, but better gold-packaged than others – becomes a part of one’s private home life; the life shared with friends and intimate others—now managed right at the centre of each other’s intersubjectivity on the micro-level. This kind of seduction, as Sartre pointed out nearly 80 years ago, is an attempt to reconnoitre and possess the freedom of others.3 (Sartre, 1976, pp. 270-276; 277-293). Thus, without doubt, the ultimate goal of a seductive consumer management programme will be to run a marketing strategy from within; that is, to commandeer the subjectivities of consumers such that they themselves ‘freely’ choose consumption lifestyles—later to claim them as their own personal preferences (rational, reflective, individualised, sophisticated, conspicuous, status-acquiring and so on). To master this technique would be also to supervise a segmental monitoring of habitus (the interiorising of a proffered and attractive lifestyle attribute) so that claims proceeding from doxa (avowals now proceeding from communally shared, partially conscious assimilation) will reign as supreme. Ira Herbert, former marketing director of the Coca-Cola company, described this strategy: “the ideal outcome . . . is for consumers to see Coca Cola as woven into their local context, an integral part of their everyday world.” (Curtin, 1996, p.187; Arvidsson, 2005, p. 249).

THE COLONISATION OF PUBLIC SPACES Advertising executes a ubiquitous ‘velvet-glove’ approach to this kind of seduction. Cheerful and sophisticated, chummy, ‘you-know-we-know-you-know’, obsequiously acclaiming your proven success and superior discernment, advertisements are found 211

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in practically every available public and private location. They spread over city centres and outskirts; over bus stops, bridges, seats, lamp posts, stairways, elevators, parking lots, football fields, subways, supermarkets, implanted video screens, trains (the entire carriage exterior), buildings (the entire face), in our letterboxes, on our breakfast tables—every niche available. Juliet Schor contends we have been colonised by advertising; that is, advertising has invaded and taken control of what was once freely available public space. French writer, Michel Foucault, was the first to recognise the link between space and power, especially as related to his notion of Governmentality—a concept that explains control of both individual and mass behaviour (Foucault, 1988, 1995). Commercialisation, for many theorists, involves the linking of certain concepts to ensure increased spending in confuted notional categories: choice/freedom; national pride/consumption (McDonald & Wearing, 2013, p. 29). Space may be used to ‘police’ the population towards certain actions and away from others. Space can shape human interaction and social relations—new societal norms are promulgated, for example, with the idea that public space can be taken over by sound and vision in the service of a commercialised location where people are marginalised (‘excluding’ entrances, walkways, seating) (Sassatelli, R. (2007, pp. 92-97). According to Juliet Schor, commercial interests have appropriated these public spaces, in other words, they have simply taken over the environment – frequently in the busiest centres of cities – for the exclusive use of advertising and to the exclusion of any other kind of informative display (direction signs and street names, for example). This can be appreciated simply by acknowledging the size of billboards – often completely blocking the views of motorists and residents – as well as the long-distance visibility of flat screen advertising seen from highways, still twinkling on the horizon in far away locations. As this colonisation expands, residents, local employees, and visitors get a non-optional immersion in 24-hour illuminated displays, sometimes with loudspeaker accompaniment. Commercially dominated spaces have no precise borders and can proliferate in any town, all attempting to seduce and steer how we conceive truth and utility concerning the goods and services we consume; all designed to maximise spending. To summarise: the seduction of consumer behaviour occurs via non-optional encounters with the ever-expanding monopolisation of community areas.

THE NEW SITES OF CONSUMPTION Times were not always like this. In Boswell’s 18th century London, people mingled easily amidst a variety of spaces that included parks, markets, ale and coffee houses, amidst a distinctive milieu of sociability. In 1763, Boswell made numerous ac212

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quaintances simply by ‘promenading’ around the town and striking up friendships with vendors and their customers, combining business with pleasure and animated conversation. In Boswell’s time one might easily coincide with the King’s retinue when visiting a theatre production - everyone had seen everyone and London life was conducted as a community of common interests (Boswell, 2010). This kind of interaction continued in British towns and cities for another two hundred years. During the first half of the 20th century, there were many small local English businesses; coffee bars, cafes, newsagents, fish & chip shops, off licences, run by local families who knew their customers and exchanged greetings and short conversations as the day progressed. Nowadays, most of this has gone. Instead we have shopping malls, large chain stores, franchised retail outlets, chain supermarkets, fast food chains, mostly run by corporate business and staffed by wan-faced teenagers who parrot management-imposed greetings on the surprised and indefinite purchasers. Both employee and customer are transient. In many towns it has become difficult to find one’s way around once familiar districts due to the episodic disappearance of familiar stores, replaced by gaudy chain substitutes, shining artificial light into the streets at all hours. Environmental psychology often concerns itself frequently with the interaction between people in their environments. (Bonnes & Secchiaroli, 1995; Roberts & Russell, 2002) But seen from the critical perspective, the new situation turns out to be a lessening of social interaction. An effective analysis of space in the new spaces for consumption requires consideration of the person-environment fit (Mcdonald & Wearing, 2013, pp. 97-113). The study of crowded areas reveals that people are less helpful towards each other in overpopulated spaces and are also more likely to withdraw from social interaction (Evans et al. 1989). Applied to overcrowded shopping spaces, we might expect this to include territoriality, personal space and barriers, but applied to the new shopping areas this turns out to involve spaces that people move through rather than inhabit. Superficial, formulaic interactions between one stranger and another, typical of the abrupt and minimised discourse of a drive-in window in some fast food outlet, is based solely on the commercial transaction at hand, this having replaced the community-based exchanges and familiar goodwill of yesteryear. Human relations, themselves, have become truncated and commodified where daydreaming consumers ‘surf’ from one store to another, ascending ‘stairways to heaven’, malls of showcased fantastic luxury where the social realities of the employees (and the factory workers who produced the goods) is kept hidden. Shopping has become a spectator pastime. This condition is conceived by Giddens (1991) as ‘disembeddedness’ - a term that denotes the ‘lifting out’ of relationships from a local context into an indefinite location. This shows that the contemporary centres of consumption constitute a new category of spatial organisation where easily reproducible ‘non-places’ have 213

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no particular coordinates with local geographic spaces and where human association is little more than a short-term affiliation always thwarted by constant change (see also Bauman, 2007; Davis & Monk, 2007). Finally, the new centres serve to exclude the less fortunate. Beggars and street merchants will be turned out by security staff. People on low incomes, the unemployed, those with health or mental disorders, cannot afford to frequent luxurious shopping malls; at best they may be employed as the cleaning staff, an invisiblised income group that can never purchase the fantastic array of goods inside.

SELF-IMAGE AND SELF WORTH In an interview, Juliet Schor cites that during the 1980s and 1990s the percentage of young people in the US who rate “being rich as their number one aspiration” grew dramatically (Holt 2005, p. 19). Chasing the aspirant habitus, for many boosts self-esteem, but, when a realistic appraisal of one’s financial condition bites in, deflation and a diminished self-worth returns to haunt the end user. A scaling up of needs heralds the scaling down of ethical concerns for spending. The popularity of celebrities, and our attempt to emulate their hedonistic, self-centred lifestyles, induces many to overspend and run up debt. The Federal Reserve reported that credit card debt in the US doubled between 1997 and 2007, while bankruptcies skyrocket (McDonald & Wearing, 2013, pp. 78-81) Overconsumption with debt will frequently have damaging effects on an individual’s self-concept and feelings of self-worth. Overconsumption, as living beyond our means, has several repercussions. Rafferty (2011), cites a subject in her study who, so enchanted by appearance fashion, spent three-quarters of her wages every month in fashion locations, rushing down in her lunch hours to see the high-street shops, convinced that she had to have a new outfit every week. For the last week of every month she was “in serious trouble” as debts increased together with her sense of guilt in spending to keep up (Rafferty, 2011, p. 256). Her intense emotional investment in promoting this self-image had made her feel dignified and energised as a result of passing comments: (“Jesus, look at the style of you!”) But this shopper’s inability to later secure a mortgage, plus guilt about her overindulgences, proved the inception of reactive agitation, distress and depression. . Self-worth can now be estimated by obsessive attention to the body. Within a few decades, cosmetic surgery, in the form of breast implants, fat removal and sculpting of the face, has sprung into the media spotlight. Commercial interests latch on as body appearance becomes a major vehicle for managing esteem (Stratton, 2001) Youth, health, fitness, beauty are all means of ensuring high regard, while unattractive bodies are viewed as evidence of neglect, lethargy, poor self-regulation—even an indication 214

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of moral failure. Presentation of the body has a major influence over popularity, companionship, sexual attraction and career promotions. It is an essential part of impression management. Those who fail to manage their body image (inevitably through the natural process of aging) suffer degradation and exclusion from opportunities others share. The body, in this case, may become your own enemy—creating a major split in self-identity that perpetuates unease and lowers self-esteem. Within a socially constituted fashion dictate for ultra-slim figures, eating disorders such as bulimia and anorexia are on the increase. As often, psychologists place emphasis for responsibility on the individual – it is her problem; she is the one who must diet or go for counselling – rather than aim for a more comprehensive understanding, one that insists mass culture be held accountable for these individual distresses. Feminist scholars are resolute that our consumer culture is not simply facilitating these disorders but actually constitutes them (Bordo, 1993; Hollows, 2000).

THE RECRUITMENT OF CHILDREN The early recruitment of children ensures compliance to the values of consumer capitalism. It is anecdotal that parents are endlessly cajoled into satisfying adolescent demands for the latest fad in advertising. Children are early socialised into becoming consumers as they indiscriminately internalise consumer ideologies related to perceived success and wellbeing. Child consumption of foods and fashion accessories, begins with their responding to TV advertisements of which they see thousands every year. Perceived weaknesses are exploited. Many US children are overweight and some fly into rages if denied immoderate consumption (Schor, 2004, pp. 141-176). Popularity, wellbeing and contentment for the young are soon fused with publicly observable consumption habits. At school, rivalry is encouraged, along with the emotions of envy, jealousy and rancour, for high-status, costly products (walkmans, brand-name sneakers, iPods), along with corrosive feelings of shame and low self-esteem when these media-implanted cravings are not satisfied. Juliet Schor reports that high consumption amongst the young is strongly correlated with risk-taking behaviour as smoking, alcohol and drug use; weapons-carrying, truancy and vandalism. It also connects with personality disorders such as anxiety, narcissism, hyperactivity and attention deficit. The new teens and tweens culture affirms that “if you are not rich, you are just a loser” (Schor, 2004, pp. 19-38; Smith, 2010). Schor notes, fascination with consumption begins very young: aged six and seven, girls are asking for the latest fashions and nail polish. They indulge copycat equivalence for sodas, fast food, candy, athletic shoes, jeans, music and films (Barber, 2007). Teen and tween culture is saturated with media-proffered violence, alcohol, drugs, guns, gender stereotypes, promiscuity, market-led definitions of cool; all re215

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quiring young people to copy directly—and to buy. Parents object to ‘pester power’ but are soon sidelined and overwhelmed by the sheer volume of media productions (Sparman et al, 2012). The commercialisation of childhood now has specialised marketers who approach school coaches, youth workers, Girl Scouts, even teachers. They research peer-to-peer discourse and behaviour. At present, the number one attribute children are attracted to is ‘cool’ (Schor, 2005). Focus groups test a product then try positioning propositions through ‘stealth advertising’, indirectly targeting age-based segments of the population where brand messages pose as public service communications (Schor, 2004). For the young, ‘cool’ personal possessions quickly assert competitive relationships with others; the inception of conspicuous status-consumption, social distinction and the foundations of many later competing partitions between friends and acquaintances in adult life (Goldberg, 2003; Schor, 2004). Fashion and taste amongst the young establish indirect modes of social discrimination (Bourdieu, 1982). Inevitably, low-income families suffer the most.

OVERCONSUMPTION, OVERWORK, AND THE LOSS OF FREE TIME Juliet Schor has become the most prominent US critic of the new consumer culture and its effect on our everyday lives. In The Overworked American (1992), Schor delineates a picture of contemporary Americans as having a greater commitment to spending money than an interest in leisure time, personal relationships and family obligations (Holt 2005, p.6). Overconsumption, in turn, requires more time to be spent at work. The balance between work and leisure is tipped heavily in favour of work—to the extent that our leisure time is much impaired by a more urgent need for rest and recuperation. According to Schor, “We want what we don’t need” (Schor, 2006). In other words, we have become accustomed to a lifestyle that goes way beyond our fundamental material needs and have exchanged these for adequate rest, leisure, quality family time and community involvement. At the same time global economies and the workplace are demanding more of our time with fewer rewards. The gap between rich and poor is steadily widening and pressure to compete is escalating amidst narrowing educational and employment prospects (Gilbert, 2008; Duncan & Murname, 2011). According to Schor, “The American standard of living embodies a level of material comfort unprecedented in human history. ... The typical family owns a fantastic array of household and consumer appliances,” ranging from cheap food to lawn mowers. “Americans live on sixty-five times the average income of half the world’s population.” In her book, she notes some astounding figures. 47% - nearly half - of a workers sample said they would trade 10% of their salary for more free 216

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time. 59% of Americans constantly feel that more and more is demanded of them, 86% of executives say their company frequently demands more time from their employees, one third of employees report feeling chronically overworked. More than one third are putting in more than 44 hours per week, do not use their full vacation allowance and take less than seven days for a vacation. Many experience anger towards other colleagues, resent those with a lighter workload and say they are making more mistakes these days at work (Schor, 1996 pp. 3, 107 – 138). So, whilst so many Americans are currently unable to find work, those inside employment are disproportionately stressed by working far too many hours, lacking sufficient time to spend with their families, increasingly no longer share meals and recreation time together. Each family member leads a separate life. This, in turn, has an impact on physical and psychological health. Depression rates are creeping up (Martin, 2007). Americans have fewer friends than the previous generations: they no longer have much time for socialising and recreational activities as they are now trapped in ‘the work and spend treadmill’.

THE ROLE OF EMOTION The above represents much of ‘controlling from without’. Now, as an extension of ‘controlling from within’, we turn to the complex role of emotion for encouraging pre-reflective impressions that interfere with rational choice. Emotion may provide the key to understanding the link between marketing and sales. Consumption is not so much about utilitarian acquisition as it is about the experience of a product or service where each perception is emotionally loaded with imagination, symbolic meaning and the satisfaction of desire. As Walter Benjamin (1973) suggested nearly 40 years ago, “consumption creates fantasy worlds that offer to the modern individual a variety of identities, vicarious experiences and emotions.” (quoted by Illouz, 2009, p. 384). Brand management does not so much plan to ‘send a message’ or implant an explicit set of thoughts. Rather it aims at evoking an outline of what the brand can mean, by forging “inter-textual links in media culture.” (Arvidsson, 2005, p.245). These links may have no precise provenance yet coagulate into ideational schemata for the spectator. A range of emotions may be expected to accompany these experiences, some rewarding and others associated with unease. For example, purchasing a diamond ring may, in the midst of observing its brilliance, elicit thoughts and feelings of my being valued in a relationship or ward off negative thoughts connected with feeling undervalued. (“I’ll be much appreciated,” as contrasted with, “She doesn’t really appreciate me.”) This contemplation occurs within a spectrum of negative and positive emotions involving envy, jealousy, a sense of humiliation, anxiety about impression management, as well 217

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as romantic love, pleasure-seeking and erotic stimulation. Contemplation, before, during and after purchase, can be suffused with emotionality of these types. Brand management attempts to tap into collective meanings associating well established categories of emotion and thought. A diamond can acquire a symbolic meaning related to cultural expectations that everyone will recognise, and this can be reconnoitred in the service of creating sales. Illouz points out that consumer theorists are still uncertain exactly how emotionality suffuses throughout the act of consumption (Illouz, 2009, p. 380). Nevertheless, there is much contemporary agreement that human desire is founded on a particular ‘lack’, that is, on the persistent desire for things that cannot, due to our psychological nature, ever be fully obtained. Such ideas have already been anticipated in philosophy, by Sartre in his 1939 theory of consciousness where he asserts we are all confronted by an unsettling inessentiality and have to invent ourselves through value-ascription, freedom, choice and action (Sartre, 1972, pp. 433-616)3. It is worth mentioning that Sartre regards emotional consciousness as ‘a magical act’ which colours our perception of things in the world. Emotion, for Sartre, belongs to an analytic unity within a particular consciousness – it is a mode of apprehending. Emotion is, by consequence, not part of a synthetic unity to be separated out as an accompaniment to consumption experience, nor something causal or ‘tacked on’ to our thinking about products (cf.Sartre, 1962). Sartre will say that desire is already consent to desire (Sartre, 1972, p. 388). That is, it is the way by which our craving gains a particular meaning through a pre-reflective intentionality: -- something is wanted. Or, for more contemporary writers, “Emotions refer to a pre-reflective state of consciousness that nonetheless engages the whole person in it. Emotions entail cognition, but a kind of cognition that does not always invoke self-consciousness.” (Illouz, 2009, p. 385). My regard for this chosen diamond, replete with a sensation of transitory gushing pleasure, is the diamond as it is for me, yet without me conferring a conscious judgement in which I am aware of myself as ‘the judgement maker’. In a similar vein, Martha Nussbaum (Nussbaum, 2001) maintains that emotions are loaded with value, judgement and belief so that cognition is itself tainted with affective certainty but without conscious deliberation as an antecedent qualifier. We are, thus, ‘saturated with affect’ in our involvements with consumer products to the extent that we forget ourselves and can ‘run along with’ a desire without any accompanying signs of prudence or reflection. Worse still, we may ‘jettison’ reflection – along with common sense about debt and disposable income – in favour of the self-indulgent pleasures of unimpeded fancy. This, of course, is what the advertisers want from us. My aspirations for improved position within my current habitus will require reinforcement backed by emotion. I may buy a hatchback because I envy the possession of one by an acquaintance; I may be jealous of a number of hatchback owners: 218

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I may be humiliated, in my local habitus, by the fact that our family has not got one; I may be anxious that my colleagues will disparage my old car; I may suffer shame in a self-inflicted sense of self-esteem—and contentment at my resolving these problems by buying one; perhaps even gleeful by contemplating its creaking new seats and the smell of its upholstery.4 So, positive emotions are reified in acquisition; negative emotions extinguished. Emotional colouring is inextricably embedded within all meanings that a good may have for me. It may be conceived as a spur to action: (“I simply had to have it.”)5 Emotions, therefore, with their loaded sense of urgency and intrinsic belief, compel towards accomplishment. They can serve society’s current infatuation with affluenza by ‘short-circuiting’ reason and function as prioritising demands. Following our previous analytic distinction, it may become difficult to disentangle an emotion, such as avidity or passion, from its consumer experience. Thus, in publicity and shopping displays, human emotions may be corralled by the marketers, in various market sectors, towards a predilection to buy. We have seen that in every emotion there is an implicit judgement. Thus, the manner in which I perceive an attraction, in the first instance, is simply presented to me by hazard, but secondly, entirely my own responsibility. Seduction, therefore, does not refer to anything ‘put’ into the mind of the perceiver. It is merely a calculated depiction amidst which the shopper chooses her own inveiglement; she accedes to her own set of illusions, whether, or not, the occasion was presented through accident or design. Sartre will insist it is our own doing whether we regard a situation as ‘inviting’ or ‘appealing’ or, conversely, ‘flat’ or ‘dull’. But, more significantly, this takes place in pre-reflective consciousness in which there is no presence of a judger—it is too fleeting and immediate. Yet, at the same time, this kind of consciousness is not an unconscious consciousness (which would be a contradiction in terms) but rather a consciousness in which I am not present to myself as ‘a thinking knower’. Rather, in pre-reflective consciousness, I am aware of conditions in the world but that they appear as short-lived impressions and ‘without me’. Sartre gives the example of chasing for a bus (Sartre, 1957, p.49). In this pre-reflective state I am merely aware of the bus having-to-be-caught – I have no need of a representation of myself during the dash, though, of course much reflective consciousnesses can take place subsequently, (“How stupid I was to have missed it.”) Similarly, flipping through a jewellery catalogue only requires emotions surrounding admiration and ‘magical’ states of affective self-indulgence. I, as a discrete, thinking, reflecting entity, am not necessarily a positional part of this contemplation. In fact, for the purposes of the unbridled ‘gut sensations’ of desire and yearning, it is convenient that I am absent as a thinker. Pre-reflective contemplation occurs, therefore, as a simpler form of consciousness; a rapt attention in itself. It is not difficult to see how a predilection towards such mental states can evade discrimination and reasoning. For it is a pre219

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reflective judgement that ‘carries me’ (or rather I consent to be carried) towards an impulsive state of mind. So we can say that pre-reflective consciousness, operating in the world of consumption, requires that ‘I’ be ‘out of the picture’; that there be no reference to an ‘I’ in this magical form of envisioning. This idea will be again supported by Martha Nussbaum when she writes: “Cognitive appraisals need not all be the objects of reflexive self-consciousness” (Nussbaum, 200, p.126). The gamble of the marketing strategists is that they will be able to ‘command me’ by my forgetting myself; that I may be seduced and conjured into a less wary style of decision making through a voluntary self-forgetting.6 But this conjuring is again effected by my own self-inflicted concurrence. It is my own voluntary acceding to my impulsive self. The advertisers merely supply an illustrated situation which I may take part in. But the forgoing heralds a new comprehension concerning an essential weak spot latent in any publicity campaign. The audience is always free to rebuff this kind of seduction; to make hard comparisons, nurture suspicions and doubts, to steadfastly maintain conscious self-regulation; to ‘see through the illusion’. And this rebuff belongs to a heightened and discriminatory form of reflective consciousness involving thought and the consideration of contrastive propositions; it is not a product of the pre-reflective state which marketers seek to work on. Someone will say that in the process of consumption, we must also be subject to reflective states such as deliberation and judgement—no one buys a diamond without thinking. This is true, but Sartre (1972, pp. 32-3) will point out deliberation has forever been a hazardous enterprise, full of chicanery and backtracking. It is through the fragility of our sense of self – deliberating or not – that we ever ‘give permission’ for advertisements to take any effect. It is the marketer’s optimistic gamble that we are insecure within ourselves. If we are unsure of our sense of self, whether, say, we can consider ourselves beneficent fiancés, or not, we can ‘bolster’ this conscious conception through lengthy and deliberate judgements prompted from without. We can transform, ‘in front of our own eyes’ a self-depiction by adopting an outside means of confirmation – with food for deliberation as prompted by the jewellery industry. Reasoned arguments, made by oneself, such as, “Do I really need this product?” or “Isn’t this a bit too expensive?” can be overcome, or bypassed, by more immediate impressions that are loaded with emotion for the prospective buyer. Reflection via emotion, therefore, acts as another spur to action that is inimical to comparisons and rational choice. If marketing strategists can provoke emotions of sufficient strength and duration, they should be able to conquer reason, even when the buyer is plagued by rational qualms concerning affordability and overconsumption. If the advertisers can access a buyer’s decision-making processes via pre-reflective awareness, reflection becomes ‘obsolete’; it is overruled ‘by the lower passions’ (Wright, 1983:219). 220

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CLASS-BASED EMOTIONS AND FASHION CONSUMPTION While emotions are intrinsically involved in individual consumption practices, some writers emphasise the role of emotion within competitive social relations (Roux & Korchia, 2006, pp.29-35). Concerning the role of emotion in fashion, Karen Rafferty (2011) unravels a strong tie between social class and fashion consumption as reinforced by emotions surrounding low self-esteem for the lower economic classes. “Fashion exists as a psych-social mechanism that has derived from increasingly competitive social relations and continues to fuel them.” (Rafferty, 2011, p. 243). Rafferty points out that women on limited incomes are, through the media, ‘advised’ by upper-middle class style advisors concerning which products look tasteful and which to choose. Such decisions are reinforced by prominent celebrities who parade fashion and command envy, admiration and respect. Compliance, lower down, is fired by social ambition and the fear of failure to impress. Frustration with one’s true social provenance can be temporarily assuaged by adopting an essentially class-conscious ‘upmarket’ fashion style in order to inch one’s way up the ladder of status through similitude, pretence and illusion. This enchantment by appearance fashions provides an emotional support that constitutes a symbolic denial of one’s social provenance. Stylishness, as portrayed by celebrities in the media, becomes the ideal for an improved self-image and conspicuous self-dramatisation for observers, where the clothes and accessories mimic the appearance of prominent female celebrities. Working class females can therefore be encouraged to experience class-based emotions and, by substitution, ‘act out’ the appearance – but not the entire spending habits – of their social superiors through the use of ‘positioning’ as a kind of micro-political status claiming (Holt, 1998). An apparent lifestyle is operationalised by optimistically placing oneself in a spotlight of visibility (Rafferty, 2011, p.240), thereby dramatising one’s physical presence and invoking temporary self-esteem (see also Bannister & Hogg, 2004). Much of the dominance shown by upper-middle class style advisors can support Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic violence, which is fundamentally an imposition of categories of thought and perception upon a now overpowered lower class, social agents who, subsequently, and through their own actions, accept this social order as justified through an incorporation of unconsciously functioning subjective structures that will perpetuate the economically dominant position of such this new economic ruling class (Bourdieu & Loic, 1992, pp. 140-173). As outlined previously, a lot of this behaviour is reinforced by prereflective experience, this time emphasising emotions such as shame, envy, resentment, pride and contempt (Sayer, 2005, p. 948) all of which sustain existing belief systems surrounding class distinction. In Bourdieu’s terminology, working class ‘economic capital’ fails to sustain aspiring claims for social and cultural capital. 221

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The women featured in Rafferty’s research article are thereby using Bourdieu’s ‘borrowed cultural capital’ (see McRobbie, 2005, pp.121–150), all consistent with our hypothesis that individuals are covertly motivated to buy products that will assuage anxiety and fear, plus the making of consumption choices that seem instinctual but which really have been seductively implanted through seduction in the media (Park & Burns, 2005, 135-141; Rafferty, 2011, p. 243).

CONCLUSION Schor’s extensive research into materialism shows correlations between low selfesteem, low levels of self-actualisation, poor vitality with higher rates of depression and anxiety. Excessive value for money decreases sensations of happiness and joy, and increases tendencies towards anger and dissatisfaction. Clearly, the stronger people are attracted to a materialistic lifestyle, the poorer their quality of life (Schor, 2004, p. 174). The consumer society’s ideology, as depicted in this chapter, is plainly connected with encouraging and maintaining social divisions between people. Its prevalence depends on maintaining belief structures surrounding class distinctions, in terms of appearances and consumption practices, as demonstrated by the distinct visibility of consumption lifestyles. Furthermore, these practices emphasise competition between individuals and erode all motivation for the furtherance of cooperation in a society that would welcome equality and a common wellbeing. Consumer culture is divisive. Brands state, “Without our product, you are a loser.” (Schor, 2005, ibid.). Consumerism thrives on competitive struggle, it will prove inimical to religious and political outlooks that advocate goodwill, sharing or a general wellbeing; in fact, no belief system that advocates altruism—even including simple consideration for others. The solitary nature of many consumption activities (TV, videogames) and the hedonistic lifestyles proffered by advertising media, increases self-centred lifestyles and a concomitant sense of alienation. A society based upon competition for status can only function well when we regard each other as rivals, when consumption lifestyles function as tools of identification, distinction—and as a means of segregation. Where self-worth is measured in terms of winner-takes-all social relations, cooperation within society is diminished, downgraded and set aside as we all become each other’s opponents when seeking placements in education, jobs, peer activities—any social position. Despite a current fashion for ‘third way’ politics, the fundamental economic antagonisms between social classes remain untouched, although categories and descriptions vary. Collaboration, assistance and reciprocity become marginalised in the struggle for ascendency amidst rising unemployment, redundancy, wider wage differentials and the creation of ghettoes 222

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of solitary deprivation.6 Yet, it is essential for a neo-liberal capitalist economy, and the contemporary consumer culture, that we be maintained as separate beings, devoid of equanimity, reciprocity, or empathic concern. Within a lack of any broad conception for the ‘mechanisms’ of distress, psychology places the responsibility for any anguish onto the individual sufferer; as overworked staff in need of counselling for stress; as infuriated employees in need of ‘anger management’. This chapter has sought to show that the current situation in consumer culture is predisposed to distress of these specific kinds, in particular by the following: our exploited ambitions for improved habitus; overwork with decreasing free time; the colonisation of public spaces; overwork and the loss of free time; incomes and debt that fail to provide for our newly implanted wants; the lessening of colloquial and authentic social interaction; the early recruitment of children; behaviours adopted to promote conspicuous status consumption; the advertisers’ inculcation of low self-esteem; the encouragement of low self-regulation in buying; an obsession with body images; the hyper-consumerist exploitation of our insecurities in order to sell even more products; the harnessing of emotion to stimulate even more spending—and a news media run by invisible oligarchies that utilize doxa for perpetuating low-grade populist comprehension of the foregoing. The universal basis for this quandary is the false belief that material wealth is our prime and overruling source of happiness. But in contemporary consumer culture, the reverse is, little by little, being shown to be true. Pursuit of ‘The America Dream’ has established a dispositional extremism in which human relations are downgraded to the extent that we have lost other-connectedness and a sense of community. A demonstrated interconnectedness between excess and disenchantment is, surely, beginning to take shape. Private wealth cannot replace our fundamental needs for association and this truth needs fully examining. Within Giddens’ conception of a present bereft of its traditional past, the individual suffers angst inside the new freedom of choice devoid of any ethical considerations. How, exactly, do our consumption lifestyles improve or impair how we feel about our own existences? As Juliet Schor points out, to restore wellbeing, we need to reinvest in our communities, our families and interpersonal relationships – and, not least importantly, the planet itself. Concerning the dearth of public debate surrounding the interstices that constitute this dilemma, the media giants and the tabloid press are forever pushing aside thoughtful discussion of current social problems with their truncated sound-bite emissions. Broadcasters, such as the US Fox News, evade democratic criticism by selective censorship promoting right-wing pundits, shouting from the screen with their ‘auctioneer voices’, to emphasize viewpoints compatible with the management outlook that favours republican political perspectives, (see Brave New Films, 2014), ‘shouting down’ opponents and abruptly cutting their air time. In the UK, newspapers 223

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have downgraded their content to suit simplistic viewpoints and the tastes of the proprietors to increase sales via a ‘common denominator’ coverage using truncated tabloid journalism styles, featuring, say, two-page-spread sensational photographs of disfavoured politicians in compromising situations, or ‘drug-crazed’ parties exhibiting out-of-focus photos of rollicking sons and daughters of the rich and famous. Journalists are offered payoffs to promote a particular slant or complain that, for fear of dismissal, they can no longer promote the methods they learnt on courses at university (Hachten, 2008). Debate of current issues with graphs to illustrate statistical figures are replaced by exclamation headlines with word-pun slogans.7.In such a situation, Bourdieu’s doxa rules. The seduction of our judgment is thus more and more managed by proprietorial influence fostering a ‘dumbing down’ of public opinion and reflective consumer choices. The famous ‘spirit of fair play’ and ‘balance of views’, as traditionally championed by the BBC, is perpetually compromised by corporatefunded influences, financing projected market share takeovers of all the media featuring sports coverage, advertising and weather as the preferred news commodities. The principle is based not on the strength and balanced estimation of divergent arguments but on the frequency, quantity and vigour of this deputised dissemination – all funded by a private oligarchy of media capitalists intent on managing public life from their elite perspective within the shadows. Apart from a few notable exceptions, the new magnates operate behind closed doors and do not feature as household names. The contemporary neo-liberal management governs at a distance. ‘Independent’ organisations such as education and healthcare are nowadays subject to constant pressure for advertising products (books, pharmaceuticals) while article coverage is loaded with product references compiled as ‘infomation’ or ‘advertainment’. Organised alternatives, dissent, and the representation of minority interests are pushed aside, simply by shrinking their airtime. It is not a question of open debate, but who shouts loudest towards how many and for how long. The less fortunate are excluded as economic undesirables (Smith, 2010; North & Fiske, 2013)8. Yet, within this overabundance of corporate aggression, one is still assured of ‘free choice’ and ‘consumer sovereignty’ as the undiminished freedom to consume. Yet, in this chapter, we have seen that this ‘freedom of choice’ is a procrustean freedom performed within strictly controlled and very limited options. We live in a society where the power to consume freely has been seductively inculcated inside the precariousness of media-manufactured self-identities for gullible; insincere, transient – often capricious – lifestyles; a bogus, manufactured notion of freedom amidst a superfluous and uncaring prosperity, resulting, for many, in only partially disclosed frustration, disappointment, disaffection and much resulting unhappiness. It has been shown in this chapter that the critical theorist outlook contributes effectively to the ongoing power struggle between a quorum of academics and the corporate world, contesting with thoroughness and vigour, these clashing conceptions of truth. 224

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Not all agree: “And who are you, consumer critic, to beef about the choices that people are making? You’re just an elitist academic, looking down on people who want to spend their weekends at the mall buying junk.” (Holt, 2005, p.11). For example, advertising produced for the highly successful After 8 Mints (established by Rowntrees in 1962). The adverts depict upper-middle class subjects in environments with a commentary corresponding to the accents and lexis of that social class. Individuals aspiring to improve their habitus would therefore embrace, interiorise and duplicate similar actions and values by consuming the product. “He wants to be loved by a freedom but demands that this freedom as freedom should no longer be free ... he wants this freedom to be captured by itself.” Concrete Relations with Others (p.367). In Sartre, J-P. (1972). Part Four, ‘Having, Doing and Being. In Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology, (H. E. Barnes, Trans.). London: Methuen. (Original work published 1939).

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However, we must be cautious about the idea that these events take place in a causal continuum. Most philosophers are chary of the idea of ascribing deterministic properties to emotion. Especially Sartre, who claims that we are both conscious and responsible for every action we take, whether reflective or not. For Sartre, ‘deliberation is a sham’, in other words in desire we have already succumbed to a temptation of our own free will. Much like the gambler who sees his resolutions melt before the gambling table, we accede to the impulse to buy ‘in a single upsurge’, regardless of our deliberations or previously stated convictions. Moreover, for Sartre, consciousness is ‘metastable’: we are constantly flipping from one disposition to another, something that might perhaps explain ‘impulse sales’. In the UK, The Times was once the paper of the establishment, read by most professional classes, but now caters to a populist agenda comparable to any tabloid. See Cole, P. & Harcup, T. (2010)Newspaper Journalism, (p. 33). London: Sage. Or, as one Occupy placard holder advertises, “Divided, we beg; united, we bargain.”

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Chapter 11

Rhetoric of Seduction:

From an Iconocratic Advertising to a Tautological Culture Paulo M. Barroso Higher School of Education – Viseu, Portugal

ABSTRACT Contemporary Western and industrialized societies have a profusion of messages with seductive and appealing meanings. Signs and images are used in advertising. They surround us to our consumption, satisfaction, pleasure, comfort, happiness, or social success. Their meanings comprise epidictic and apodictic messages of seduction. This chapter is about techniques of persuasion and effective communication through signs and images of advertising. Following a reflexive methodology, based on a theoretical research, the main objective is to understand how these techniques are more and more improved and able to develop new visual and popular forms of life, demonstrating that seduction is all about signs and images, i.e. it is a semiosis process of being able to send messages and read them accordingly.

INTRODUCTION In the contemporary societies, mainly in the Western and industrialized ones, globalization increases, on the one hand, the quantity and variety of products, including the range of people’s options to satisfy psychological and material needs (i.e. commodities, services, and brands) and, on the other hand, messages with seductive and appealing meanings, i.e. signs and images used in advertising that surround us DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-0525-9.ch011 Copyright ©2017, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

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relating these products to our consumption, satisfaction, pleasure, comfort, happiness, or social success. According to this initial and general characterization, which defines a neo-Dionysian or Carpe diem hedonistic culture mainly interested in the ephemeral pleasure and the usufruct of immediate satisfaction, what is the role of seduction? Considering the profusion of products and messages, Jean Baudrillard designates it the consumer society, i.e. the great emphasis upon things and the fantastic conspicuousness of consumption and abundance which represents a mutation in the ecology of the human species (Baudrillard, 1998, p. 50). Such profusion leads to the mass, unconscious, and conspicuous consumption, which apparently fulfils the individual self-realization: the expectation to achieve happiness and social success as a result of advertising claims and people involved in consumption. Baudrillard criticizes the consumer society because it produces signs and images of consumption and it consequently causes both a plethora and a profound transformation of the socio-cultural ecosystem. Regarding this mass, unconscious, and conspicuous consumption, Thorstein Veblen’s The Theory of the Leisure Class points out the importance of the means of communication and the mobility of the population to the exposure of the “individual to the observation of many people” (Veblen, 2007, p. 60). However, globalization also makes these products basically uniform, since the differences between them are diluted by the massiveness of global market. In essence, all products (belonging to the same family of goods for immediate consumption, regardless their brands) look the same or uniform either in their appearance (the packaging, including the message issued) or regarding their intrinsic properties. Consequently, the present era seems propitious to effective language strategies be credible and pretentious (have truth pretentions), i.e. be used in such a manner to create a false appearance of great importance or worth. These speeches are epidictic and apodictic messages of seduction; they are properly advertising speeches. Therefore, the present era seems also auspicious to advertising, because it is an occasion to practice techniques of persuasion and effective communication which are able to differentiate what is uniform and uniformize what is different. Improved techniques in advertising are used for the development of new visual and popular forms of life. It is no longer sufficient to show merely the product; more effective is to use signs and images of seduction because “seduction is all about signs”, i.e. it is “about being able to send them and read them” (Greene, 2003, p. 139). Persuasion and seduction are two common, similar and old forms or abilities of communication. Both aim to influence people to do what is required, i.e. to get people to accept an action or a thought that they might not have otherwise accepted: persuasion is the ability to change someone’s beliefs, attitudes, behaviors and actions about something through effective arguments; seduction goes further, it is the ability to lead astray by false or fallacious persuasion, usually by appealing to 233

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sexual desires, needs, and emotions (e.g. using young and attractive women in TV commercials to sell any product for immediate consumption). Seduction lies in affections, not in reasons. Advertising messages are more emotional than rational, i.e. they are designed for passionate reactions and not for intellectual impact, because it is easier to persuade through emotions (pathos) that through reasons (logos). However, while persuasion is the attempt to change one’s mind, seduction is the more effective and persuasive attempt to do it through the use of a sexual appealing. In an increasingly narcissistic and hedonistic “consumer society”, advertising becomes a powerful agent of seduction. The free and global market of mass-production and mass-consumption, industrialization and technology also foster individualism and neo-Dionysian hedonism powered by seduction, spectacle, and immediate pleasure (Barroso, 2014, p. 371). As an object of study, seduction in advertising is not (and cannot be) independent from the rhetorical strategies of public discourse which become, in this way, seductive. Rhetoric (from the Greek retoriké, the art of discourse) is a technique, an art, a form or mode of enunciating or saying. This mode improves the effect of the message, the influence of what is actually enunciated or said. This ability is intended by the emitter to persuade or motivate the receivers, because saying in a more convincing way, choosing carefully the best signs (words or images) is as much or more important than what is even said (the content). As a powerful technique or tool to influence or to persuade, the use of rhetoric in advertising is a strategic communication, using language effectively to please and to persuade people through public speeches. Rhetorical strategies choose words, images and their particular meanings to produce an eloquent way to use them. For this reason, the main objective of this chapter is to critically analyze, from a semiotic and comprehensive perspective, how the public discourse of advertising works with seductive signs and images in a more and more visual and popular culture. This chapter is both analytical and critical about the visual and popular culture, which is mostly shaped by a visual rhetoric. The advertising semiotics methodology is followed to analyze signs and images, in correspondence with a practical application to read and to understand the social values of a given modern time and public space. The methodology is based on a theoretical research, which starts with a conceptualization of advertising semiotics as a building structure of the visual in the public space, but also in examples, in order to demonstrate the semiocracy or, according to Roland Barthes’ perspective, the pan-semiotization of the world. The chapter examines the role of advertising (as an influent public discourse based on signs and images) in the expansionary semiotization of the twentieth century onwards modern iconolatrous and mass-culture. The reasons for doing it are several and obvious, inter alea the accelerated, technological, and increasingly effective development of the media and communication techniques used in advertising strate234

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gies; the large coverage (influent diffusion) and effects of advertising messages; and the effectiveness of visual rhetoric, which is culminating or, at least, evolving into a visible semiocracy or iconocracy of the public space. In short, advertising has become an inevitable and fully integrated part of modern culture; “advertising is a channel through which social change is constantly mediated” (Leiss et al., 2005, p. 16). There are consequences of mass-communication practices and strategies on modern iconolatrous and popular cultures. In these cultures, seduction is properly used. Signs and images used in advertising are, sometimes, visual pollution and ethically disabled or disapproved. The plethora of such mass-communication turns advertising semiotics binding consumerist messages and dominant values in the public space. The relevance of this approach is assured by the growth of displays or screens with signs and images in the public space, conveying attractive and seductive messages, which establishes collective ways of seeing and understanding them, but also ways of living and collective ways of thinking and taking actions. Important questions are addressed regarding how advertising constructs a culture of seduction, such as: How signs and images of advertising produce seduction and a visual culture? What consequences does it have for social values, cultural patterns, moral principles and ethical concerns? Why seduction is so used in advertising? What seduction encloses to cause impact in the consumer behavior?

SEDUCTION IN ADVERTISING: RHETORICAL AND SYMBOLIC MESSAGES Plato’s Gorgias and Phaedrus introduce two possibilities for the rhetorical force of words: i) the good rhetoric as a psychagogy, guiding the soul for desirable life goals in the Phaedrus (1997, 261a); and ii) the bad sophistic and seductive rhetoric in the Gorgias (2004, 502e-503a). As per Plato, the misuse or abuse of seduction is in the sophistic rhetoric and seduction has no place in philosophy, because philosophy is the search of truth (Aletheia). Without detail the earlier contribution of the ancient Greek thinkers, seduction has become an important and interesting subject since, metaphorically and according to the Bible, the serpent seduced Eve, offering her the forbidden apple that would condemn humankind to the Original Sin and to the deprivation of the paradise. Since then, several authors have demonstrated the importance of seduction as an essential element to be used and included in persuasive or manipulative discourses, i.e. communication strategies reaching the public or leading people to think in a certain way or to take certain actions.

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Seduction is one of the major subjects in Greek myths. This circumstance shows seduction as peculiar to human nature and history. For example, the Greek myth of Calypso and Ulysses is full of seduction: the former seduced the latter, the hero of Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey. Seduction is also well-known in the current history of sirens as symbols of transformation and illusion. The mentioned Homer’s ancient epic book (written around 800 B.C.) has one of the first references to humans and sirens interaction. In The Odyssey, Ulysses finds sirens “who always seek to enchant all men, whoever arrives at their island” (Homer, 2002, p. 238). The danger follows the incautious man who without knowing approaches the sirens and hears their voices, i.e. their marvelous and inebriating songs. In his turn, The Iliad of Homer reports Hera thinking up a strategy to divert and to seduce Zeus, so that Poseidon would be free to aid Greece on the battlefield. Before approaching her target, Hera bathes, anoints and perfumes her skin, dresses in charming clothes (Homer, 2007: 304). These literary and historical references confer and transmit either a pejorative sense or a positive sense of seduction. A pejorative sense, because deceit, fraudulence or enticement are proper to the seduction as enticing, temptation, enchantment, witchcraft or fascination, i.e. seduction as a synonym of a strategy or process to deceive with art and cunning for one’s convenience (Greene, 2003, p. 417). This means the act of influencing by exciting hope or desire, provoking someone to do something irresistibly through (often false or exaggerated) promises or persuasion. A positive sense, because the force capable of overcoming the resistance of the seduced face the onslaught of the seducer. The purpose of the seducer is to get influence over the seduced and the former gets it developing an effective and artful seduction process through the strategic use of signs (words) and images. Let us remember also the case of Narcissus and the seductive power of (his) image, on the one hand, and the case of Salome (daughter of Herodias, the wife of the Tetrarch of Juctea) and the seductive power of (her) words, arguments and dance which persuaded Herod Antipas, the Tetrarch, as it was originally written by Oscar Wilde (1996, pp. 25-28). Seduction (from the Latin seductione, se + ductione, “to drive”, “to lead astray” i.e. “driving through a convenient path” or the “act of put aside” from the way, “separation”) happens in a relation of power, domination, exploitation, or even convenience accomplished by the seducer (which is in a favourable position) over the seduced (the passive subject of seduction). For Robert Greene, “seduction is the ultimate form of power” (2003, p. 443). The former takes advantage and benefit from the unequal relationship of seduction with the latter. Otherwise, he would not seduce, once the process of seduction starts with him and there are always people available and receptive to be seduced. According to Robert Greene, “seduction is a form of deception, but people want to be led astray, they yearn to be seduced. If they didn’t, seducers would not find so many willing victims” (Greene, 2003, p. xxiv). 236

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There is no seduction without signs of seduction, because these signs are transmitted by the seducer and received by the seduced. For this reason, such signs are the vehicle to perceive, recognize and understand the seduction intended and conveyed in words, clothes, appearance, acts, attitudes, images, behaviors, etc. All these signs may be natural or conventional; they belong to a semiosis process, which is the condition sine qua non to someone be able to send signs of seduction through verbal or non-verbal messages and to others be able to read and understand them accordingly. More than an act, seduction is a process; it develops itself with time and it is dynamic, i.e. it may be caused by several factors, take random paths, and ends with unexpected results. Seduction may be intentional or not; one person may ignore that another person feels seduced by his appearance. Seduction may also be unconscious or not; one may be seduced without knowing, like it happens with the subliminal advertising, as follow. However, advertising seduction is always intentional and belongs to a strategy; it is performed consciously, with advertisers’ awareness, but not always with public awareness of its messages and meanings. The previously mentioned disproportionate relation between the seducer and the seduced also happens in advertising, because the former (brands and advertisers) has what the latter (general public and, particularly, the consumer) wish to have: the product. From this initial condition, the seducer elaborates seductive, attractive, and performing speeches to capture the attention, to provoke the interest, and to arouse the desire that, at the end, culminates with the purchase and consumption of the product. Seduction acts more effectively in the subconscious human level. According to Robert Heath, the way how advertising might be influencing us without our knowledge might somehow be manipulating subconsciously our behavior and this is a worrying matter, because this way (an alternative to persuasion in which advertising works) has quite possibly much more influence than persuasion (Heath, 2012, p. xi). Heath emphasizes that his perspective has nothing to do with the subliminal effects mentioned in Vance Packard’s The Hidden Persuaders about messages exposed below the threshold of perception were based on a hoax, which has no evidence that advertising can influence us in this way. For Heath, “even more worrying is that advertising ability to seduce our subconscious uses elements that are in our full view and easy for us to discern” (Heath, 2012, p. xi). In fact, the most successful advertising campaigns are not those we love or those we hate, or even those with new or interesting messages, but those “that are able to effortlessly slip things under our radar and influence our behavior without us ever really knowing that they have done so” (Heath, 2012, p. 6). The way these apparently inoffensive advertising campaigns work is by seducing our subconscious with creativity. The paradox is that “the less attention we pay, the more effective the subconscious seduction becomes” (Heath, 2012, p. 10). 237

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One of the most subconscious seductive strategies is the product placement, i.e. the practice of paying to place products in popular TV programs (e.g. soup operas and serialized set of typical programs of popular culture). What makes such strategies seductive is the fact that people usually don’t think about it and come to an unconscious decision. According to Charles Hill, advertisers prefer “to compel people to buy a product without even knowing why they’re buying it – as a visceral response to a stimulus, not as a conscious decision” and “this is best done through images” (Hill, 2008, p. 37). Such effectiveness is better achieved with TV commercials, which “invade our private space and time and reach us when we tend not to be alert and vigilant”, in compliance with Anthony Blair (2008, p. 56). It is easier to make people agree using images than words. Images offer no effort to see what is shown (both the product and the psychological appeal). Viewers transfer their “identifications with the commercials to the brand or product”; they want a certain brand or product because they think of themselves “as like the person in the commercial, doing the kinds of things done in the commercial” and no reasoning occurs doing this (Blair, 2008, p. 58). This was done by the Marlboro billboards with a picture of a cowboy on a horse smoking a cigarette. In this case, the visual influence is more powerful than any reasoning possible offered by words. Seduction creates a favorable environment for itself, i.e. to the perception of the product by which “seduction seduces” people in order to sell both the product and the brand values (e.g. a perfume and an ideal of female beauty, as it happens in “J’adore Dior” fragrance advertising campaign with Charlize Theron and, long before, Marilyn Monroe, Marlene Dietrich and Grace Kelly). Seduction is not properly in the commodities themselves, but in the commodities’ package, like the discourses that mention the commodities and appeal to them; discourses intentionally produced with certain meanings to create intended moods in the public about the acquisition of those commodities. However, in his magnum opus entitled Capital, particularly in the Critique of Political Economy, Karl Marx uses the term “fetishism of the commodity” to show its secret, considering that “a commodity appears at first sight an extremely obvious, trivial thing”, i.e. it is a product of human labor and it satisfies human needs by its properties, but, nevertheless, “it is a very strange thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties” (Marx, 1982, p. 163). Marx uses the expression “the mystical character of the commodity”, meaning a fetishistic effect exerted by the commodity, to describe the regulating social power that objectified value relations gain under the capitalist system. “The mystical character of the commodity does not therefore arise from its use-value” (Marx, 1982, p. 164). Subsequently, this power causes a false belief about social properties ascribed (the fetish-induced illusion). Marx says: “I call this the fetishism which attaches itself to the products of labor as soon as they are produced as commodities, and is therefore inseparable from the production of 238

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commodities” (Marx, 1982, p. 165). Marx calls such influence as “fetishism”, which is a sort of seduction and it is always singular and sublime like all seductions, but never explicitly; otherwise, it would not work effectively. Using rhetorical advertising messages creates seduction. The essence of advertising is, ab ovo, to capture the attention, to provoke the interest, to arouse the desire, to allow the memorization, to lead and to repeat the action. Therefore, advertising becomes both ancient and modern rhetoric techniques. The effective application of advertising (as a strategic communication and a rhetorical technique) intends the production and use of certain meanings (connotations) in persuasive messages. Such application forms a rhetorical technique, because rhetoric is the art of speech, the supreme good which gives freedom to who uses it and also gives domain over other people, as it is explained by Plato’s Gorgias, i.e. the power to persuade through the speech everybody (Plato, 2004, 452e) or as it is asked by Socrates in Phaedrus: “Must not the art of rhetoric, taken as a whole, be a kind of influencing of the mind by means of words […]?” (Plato, 1997, 261a). The same virtuous use of rhetoric (a careful and conscientious use for good purposes) is shown in general, according to The Art of Rhetoric of Aristotle, as “the ability to discover what is appropriate in each case in order to persuade” (Aristotle, 2004, 1355b). As at the beginning (circa 2,500 years ago) in Ancient Greece, rhetoric is the organized use of written, spoken and visual language to fulfill certain purposes (e.g. to construct meanings and identities, to coordinate social behaviors, to mediate the power, to produce social change, etc.). Language is essential to a rhetorical strategy of seduction, because one shape language to influence other people at one’s own convenience. Choosing the appropriate expression to communicate the best arguments is essential to persuade people about every subject. As in classical Greek culture, the social structure of current and complex societies is based on the dichotomy ancient versus modern (or tradition versus modernity). This dichotomy leads to the re-meaning or semantic reconversion of the “ancient”, as Roland Barthes’ book The Semiotic Challenge admitted on the designated “ancient rhetoric” face the modern, stating that “the world is incredibly full of ancient rhetoric” (Barthes, 1987, p. 19). Regarding advertising as a persuasive strategy to seduce or to manipulate, creating false needs, Herbert Marcuse distinguishes both true and false needs. The false needs “are those which are superimposed upon the individual by particular social interests in his repression” (Marcuse, 2007, p. 7). Therefore, advertising encourages people to develop false needs and to satisfy such needs in misdirected ways purchasing non-essential commodities (Leiss et al., 2005, p. 83). According to Wilson Bryan Key, advertising messages are designed for emotional, not intellectual impact, i.e. for affective and feeling appeal rather than cognitive and thinking appeal (Key, 1976, p. xi). Sartori explains that people prefer, in general, the 239

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summarized and fulminating meaning of the synthetic image, which fascinates and seduces them (Sartori, 1998, p. 150). The visual effectiveness exploration through modern advertising tools depends on the use of aesthetic, artistic, and connotative images, which reinforces the role of visual rhetoric to inspire, to influence, and mostly to seduce the public/consumers. Any type of figurative element becomes visual rhetoric, i.e. communication styles using images to produce meanings or arguments (Bulmer, 2006, p. 55). Aesthetic elements (shapes, shadows, colors, saturation, depth, movement, etc.) and semantic elements (encoding levels: iconic, iconographic, tropological, topic, and enthymematic) turn effective the advertising messages; both constitute a visual and rhetorical expression of seduction in advertising. Advertising is a primarily public and persuasive communication. Everyone is under the influence of advertising. As Vance Packard points out in his classic book The Hidden Persuaders, “many of us are being influenced and manipulated, far more than we realize, in the patterns of our everyday lives” (Packard, 2007, p. 31). There are advertising messages with rational and non-rational techniques of persuasion, which are impossible to perceive at the conscious level of awareness. According to Chaim Perelman, argumentation theory “covers the whole field of speech that seeks to convince or persuade” (1977, p. 19). In The Semiotic Challenge, Roland Barthes defines rhetoric as a meta-language, whose object-language is the speech. Like poetics, rhetoric is a speech about the speech (Barroso, 2014, p. 363). Poetics and rhetoric involve several practices, since both are a technique or art of persuasion, a teaching, a science or proto-science, a moral and a social practice (Barthes, 1987, p. 20). If rhetoric is the study and the practice of the most appropriate way to conceive persuasive speeches based on argumentation, advertising rhetoric is the art or technique of using language in an elaborate, strategic, and efficient way to communicate with more persuasiveness or effectiveness. For this reason, Aldous Huxley wrote in On the Margin – Notes and Essays that advertisement is “the most exciting, the most arduous literary form of all, the most difficult to master, the most pregnant in curious possibilities” (1961, p. 127). A demanding advertising seduces and transform rational and critical people into uncritical buying public. Language is useful not only to express thoughts or feelings, but also to act socially, creating and maintaining different social relations. To communicate (from the Latin communication-onis) “act of share” or “to make common”, leading to the idea of communion and community) is already per se to interact, to produce actions; it is a form of acting; and advertising, as a rhetorical technique of communication, exponentially represents this requirement through its purpose of persuading to sell, i.e. to use communication as a means to an end: to sell the product or the brand.

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Therefore, rhetoric becomes a powerful technique or tool to influence or to persuade no matter what, being far away from the ancient ideals of its republican genesis as it is mentioned by Nietzsche’s On Rhetoric and Language “as an essentially republican art” (Nietzsche 1989, p. 3). As a technique of communication, advertising persuades to sell, “to influence and cause a buying behavior” (Breton, 2002, p. 59). Sometimes, it creates spurious needs and desires in people, fostering an increasingly post-modern or secular, hedonistic and consumerist society. Advertising “models the consciences”, in so far that it conveys itself a consumer society and mass culture defense (Breton, 2002, p. 60). Advertising can be based on a given dominant sensibility in the culture where it runs to make the promo-message more effective. For example, the concept of “Italianness” or “Italianicity” (i.e. the Italian character or quality or the state of what belongs to Italy; “the expression of what is coded as Italian”) exploited by several advertising campaigns (e.g. Dolce & Gabbana advertisements reporting the Italian way of life, the fashion style, and the daily cultural lifestyle). Sometimes, advertising links a product or a brand with a clear and stereotyped cultural or national identity (Edensor, 2002; Wyss, 2012). Advertising creates stereotypes about Italian culture: “the nationalizing construction of Italianicity, for instance, endows the products with an identity, a sort of specific anthropomorphic ontology” (Wyss, 2012, p. 180). Traditional products may be transformed by the message style, in order to promote new consumers’ habits. For example, Portuguese wine advertising relies on images of seduction, sociability and sophistication (Cannon; Baubeta & Warner, 2000, p. 78). Wine advertisements project this product as a national symbol of good taste, wellbeing, contentment, status and power, creating “associations between the product and romantic encounters, party celebrations and meals, leisure pursuits and relaxation” (Cannon; Baubeta & Warner, 2000, p. 78). The most common images used in wine advertising are attractive; these images must show signs of seduction, social enjoyment or relaxation, in order to suggest desirable environments, situations, reasons for consuming wine. Words link the suggestive images to a meaning, guiding people, according to advertisers’ intentions. This type of advertising is verbo-pictorial; it uses the clear associations between wine and seduction, since the main message is always one of sensuality, seduction, sexual desire (Cannon; Baubeta & Warner, 2000, p. 81). The connection between image and text is one of suggestion. “Seduction is the key word, being expressed both in the image and in the text, but there is also an appeal to more lasting sentiments of love” (Cannon; Baubeta & Warner, 2000, p. 83). Advertisements about Swiss chocolate, German cars, Italian pasta also seduce by means of a cultural or national character of the products, besides the product itself or its qualities. This is the rhetoric of seduction in advertising. Words work as 241

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instruments of seduction through hidden meanings. The effect is not in the words, but in the message, i.e. in the strings of words producing intended subliminal (below the liminal, i.e. under the threshold or transitional stage) meanings. The word “subliminal” means ideas, images, and concepts perceived in the brain below the threshold of consciousness. The perception is subconscious; the public doesn’t realize it. The meanings reach the subconscious of the person without intermediation of the conscious brain, in an inadvertently way to the reason, according to Álex Grijelmo (2000, p. 15). The linguistic competence is to know both how to convey and how to understand a message. Both situations may happen using words and its meanings either consciously or subconsciously. By the rule, advertising messages have deep and superficial meanings. Much to the purpose, Álex Grijelmo points out that words have a hidden power for what they evoke, because its history is hidden or ignored and it is part of its meaning; that’s why the words seduce (Grijelmo, 2000, p. 33). However, the seductiveness of words is not either in their grammatical function (verbs, nouns, adverbs, adjectives, which can share this strength all alike) or in the meaning easily understandable, but in the latent value of their sound and history, the relationships each term established with other words, the evolution over his existence (Grijelmo, 2000, p. 33). If any intention to persuade or to dissuade always provoke resistance or some sort of suspicion, mostly when declared attempts are faced, the seduction of words (and images) follows a different way: it starts from the intellect, but it is not addressed to the rational field of who receives the message, but to their emotions (Grijelmo, 2000, p. 37). The connotative value of signs (text and image) exerts a sublime function. The seduction of signs does not need any logic, but the expressive and the implicit. “A mathematical proof convinces, but a perfume seduces” (Grijelmo, 2000, p: 38). The seduction of words and images lies in affection, not in reasons. The distinction between persuading and convincing was clearly made by Chaïm Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca in The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation as follows: “to someone concerned with the rational character of adherence to an argument, convincing is more crucial than persuading” (1991, p. 27). Persuasion is more properly accurate and suitable to emotions (pathos) and convincing to reasons (logos).For Álex Grijelmo, words denote because they mean, but they connote because they “pollute”. The seduction proceeds from the connotations, from messages between the lines rather than explicit statements. To exert seduction through words and images in order to persuade effectively is a standard in advertising activity. Advertising messages are everywhere (they even enter into people’s homes by the TV screen without asking permission) and have a power or force to influence public behavior. By the rule, advertising develops a culture of seduction, a mechanism of attraction and appeal focused on products and 242

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commercial services promoted through seductive and persuasive messages. Such mechanism has often been the case in communication strategies and approaches of popular culture (e.g. political propaganda). For Gilles Lipovetsky, far from being confined to the interaction between people, seduction has become a general process with a tendency to regulate consumption, organizations, information, education, and customs. All contemporary life has become controlled by a new strategy that overthrew the primacy of production relations in benefit of an apotheosis of seduction relations (Lipovetsky, 2006, p. 1). Today, seduction is the dominant social relation, principle and global organization of the society of abundance. With the profusion and the luxury of products, images, and services, the hedonistic society of consumption reveals the breadth of the strategies of seduction. However, strategies of seduction, contrary to what Lipovetsky says (that seduction has nothing to do with false representation and alienation of conscience), reveal more effectiveness and creates precisely the illusion of something attractive to persuade. With aesthetic signs and strategies of appearance, fashion is the language of seduction. Fashion clothing has been a sign of class and an instrument of seduction ever since (Lipovetsky, 1996, p. 165). But recently, fashion clothing becomes the seduction clothing; it draws body attractions, reveals and conceals the claims of sex, gives life to erotic charms (Lipovetsky, 1996, p. 72). However, fashion has entered into a new phase, according to Lipovetsky, a phase governed by the individualistic logic: the clothing is less and less a sign of social honor and a new relationship appeared, in which seduction prevails over social representation. Lipovetsky quotes Yves Saint-Laurent who said that people no longer wish to be elegant, but they want to seduce (Lipovetsky, 1996, p. 136). Fashion transformation is followed by an increasingly unrealistic, fantastic, delirious, and extravagant communication, including the public discourses like advertising. In a time of creative and spectacular advertising, products are stars or “living beings”; it is necessary to create personal brands with style and character. The effectiveness is no longer to list the benefits or the objective qualities, but to communicate a “brand personality” (Lipovetsky, 1996, p. 212). Advertising seduction changed: it has now a personal look and it is necessary to humanize the brand, giving it a soul, like the confident Marlboro man or the sensual Dior woman. Just as fashion individualizes the appearance of beings, the advertising ambition is to customize the brand giving it personality, giving reason to the words of Séguéla that the “real” advertising uses the star-system methods. But it is for sure a structured communication like fashion, increasingly under the thumb of the spectacular, customizing appearances and pure seduction (Lipovetsky, 1996, p. 212). To the same degree that fashion cannot be dissociated from the physical aspect of the person, advertising functions as cosmetic for

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communication: for the same reason that fashion, advertising is primarily directed to the eye; it is a promise of beauty, seduction of appearance, idealized environment more than information (Lipovetsky, 1996, p. 213). Advertising seduction has symbolic and social functions, revealing and transmitting values socially esteemed. Advertising seduces through the strategic and the artful use of words and images. When Lancôme launched the fragrance line for women called “Attraction”, the brand took care to present the product in a vial (as always happens in the packaging of perfumes) very artistically crafted. The relation of attractiveness to visual and popular culture is much the same as that of the seduction. The name of the perfume reinforces the idea of seduction. The consumption of the perfume supposedly causes the desired attraction of people. Therefore, using attractiveness is a wise strategy for advertisers. In Lancôme’s advertising, the use of physical attractiveness, which has received much attention in general, is explicitly exploited, shaped, and expressed. However, sometimes advertisements do it implicitly; “many products are sold by appealing to sexual attraction and physical beauty” (Fennis & Stroebe, 2010, p. 17). These appeals make sense when selling cosmetics or perfumes. What sense makes when a car dealer advertises a new product by placing an attractive female model on the bonnet if the most important is the motor features of the product? Making sense is not the purpose; the purpose is to seduce the target-market (mostly male) and the best way to do it is placing an attractive female model. One of the main elements or stimulus featured in advertisements is beautiful and/or sexy woman next to the product as one, i.e. two visual signs (the image of the product and the image of a woman) meaning the same positive attributes (charm, beauty, perfection, elegance or prestige, etc.). Advertising messages express thoughts and feelings inherent to the products and their brands, according to the images used in the strategy; not simple products and its functions. Another Lancôme’s slogan for the fragrance Magie Noire says “The source of enchantment” and represents the object (the perfume) with social, cultural, and emotional meanings, promising secret mystical powers of control and enchantment (Leiss et al., 2005, p. 221). The aim of this slogan is not to tell any information or truth; it is to persuade using seduction. The advertising seductive mechanism is shown in a variety of aspects: visual design, fashion, jewellery, perfumes, etc. Even technology (computers, mobile phones, automobiles, etc.) becomes more seductive through certain rhetorical visual messages with an attractive female model. To achieve influence on public and invade the private sphere of desire and satisfaction, advertisements follow a hedonistic strategy, exploring seduction and internalizing signs and images about a certain idealization of charm, beauty, perfection, elegance or prestige (e.g. the human body represented by models with “perfect” bodies; technology with advanced 244

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and comfortable cars; landscapes with idyllic holiday trips; lifestyles with electrical appliances to facilitate modern life’s household; emotions and pleasure sensations with perfumes). However, enticing advertising strategies are not only women’s or men’s sexuality, but also children as the acme of a post-industrial libido revolution. In the Tipalet’s advertisement appealing to sexual attraction, the slogan says “Blow in her face and she’ll follow you anywhere”. What elements of this advertisement are able to seduce, attract, and hold consumer attention? How people perceive physical attractiveness in this advertisement? The persuasion process of this slogan intentionally confuses the meaning of the message. The slogan generates meanings using strategic semantic confusion. By the rule, seduction and attractiveness functions as a halo or a simple decision rule of the form “what is beautiful is good” (Fennis & Stroebe, 2010, p. 17) or, in general, “what is X is good” and X may be several things products must have as they are desired by people: pleasurable, comfortable, elegant, tasty, beautiful, etc. Advertising explores seduction also through deductive reasoning such as: “it is convenient to buy an economical car” (first/major premise); “the car model X is economical” (second/minor premise); “therefore, to buy the car model X is convenient” (conclusion or final premise). How people understand this reasoning? The understanding way is simple and easy; it is based on culture, language, and experience, causing no intellectual efforts. This orientation is metaphorical, therefore, it is not arbitrary. Advertising language follows the logic of predicative statements such as “A is x” or “the product y is good”. These statements are directed to a certain “state of things” in the world. According to George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, it has basis in our physical and cultural experience, since what is convenient or economical is always “up” (good) and the opposite is always “down” (“bad”) (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p. 14). Metaphors structure our language, thoughts, attitudes, and actions, because they are grounded in our experience. “Nowadays the number of small-car owners has gone up drastically because there is a large subculture where SAVING MONEY IS BETTER has priority over BIGGER IS BETTER” (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p. 23). The general use and influence of a certain language (such as advertising) structures and dominates gradually the collective thought as well other shared forms or ways of communication, behavior, feeling, attitude, and action. Advertisements use deductive reasoning to persuade, starting from convenient premises to drag or carry away people (e.g. “millions of consumers have already tried the new product X... what about you?...”. The same strategy is followed by the slogan “9 out of 10 movie stars use Lux”, a statement next to the image of Esther Williams’ jovial face, as if the movie stars would say these words to justify her appearance. For Anthony Giddens, the images of women in “soft pornographic magazines” are objects of desire, “but never love” (1992, p. 119). These images excite and stimulate. Giddens points out that “‘seduction’ has lost much of its meaning in a 245

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society in which women have become much more sexually ‘available’ to men than ever before”; previously, in more traditional times, the seducer “was in his own way a genuine adventurer” (Giddens, 1992, p. 84). For Giddens, seduction is easily assimilated to a male world of achievement and the overcoming of obstacles, but “this orientation becomes empty once seduction loses its earlier meaning” (1992, p. 85). According to Edgar Morin, the industrial power was extended everywhere and was characterized by the arising of the spirit industrialization processed into images and dreams. It was a moment of an exponential technical development and an emergent innovative ways of communication for everyone, whose process culminated in a cultural massiveness, involving love, welfare, happiness, ideal lifestyles, and, of course, seduction. In such cultural massiveness, the typified images of women are created in advertising. Eroticism and female values are gradually massive in the advertising discourses, in particular, and in the mass culture context, in general, where seduction appears associated as an important element. If it is true that, as Morin recognizes, products of seduction always existed, it is this new advertising course that should transform hygiene products in beauty products and products of seduction (Morin, 2002, p. 121). Advertising reveals the hitherto latent (and even repressed) eroticism of typical hygiene product, the soap, and imbued it with eroticism until transforming it into a product of seduction (e.g. Lux slogan). Therefore, advertising quickly disengaged the path from cleaning to beauty and from beauty to sex-appeal, using shampoos, creams, toothpaste with a first purpose submerged by an erotic purpose. A paradigmatic case of a product sexualization strategy, transforming a banal use of it into an outstanding experience of having an intense sensation, is the Herbal Essences shampoo orgasmic commercial: we hear a woman moaning (“Oh… Yes! Yes! Yes!...”) in an airplane bathroom simply because she’s washing her hair. Who buys a shampoo to get a sexual orgasm feeling rather than a clean, nourished, and healthy hair? Seduction implies sexuality and everything is now sexualized, registering an explicit demand for seduction (Hegarty, 2004, p. 69). Hygiene products did not just clean, which is the most essential function, but also promise to satisfy what has nothing to do with its benefits. For Morin, the banal products become products of seduction, adding the beauty valence to the health valence, because they bring future, in addition to health for the hepatic, the slenderness to the paunchy. For Morin, the eroticism of commodities is, first of all, advertising, and it has specifically to do with popular culture. The erotic virulence is more manifest in advertising (in the incitement to consume) than in the commodities themselves (in the consumption). As Morin says, the pin-up who shows her legs for Schweppes is not, of course, in this soft drink bottle. The eroticism injection in representing a nonerotic commodity (e.g. the advertising bringing together an attractive female image and a fridge, a washing machine or a soda) has the task not only (or not so much) 246

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to cause directly the male consumerism, but to beautify, before women’s eyes, the commodity that they will appropriate. The eroticism brings into play the magic of seductive identification close to the eventual customer. The commodity plays the role of the desirable woman to be desired by women appealing to their desire of being desired by men. This strategy represents the woman to be confused with the thing desired. Morin believes that the values of a mass and modern society are very based on the romantic ideals and that’s why this would be a society markedly feminine. According to Morin, this would be a characteristic of the XX century mass culture: the strong identification with feminine values, including all the symbolic and material production of a strategy of appearances and seduction. At the same time, the art of seduction gets more importance in the new lifestyle. We are so accustomed to see women painted, worried with her diet, experts about toilette and fashion that we forget what this apparatus means. The prostitute, according to Morin, does nothing but exaggerate the seductive appeal of the normal woman. The latter turns herself beautiful as if to raise a permanent “wish me” (Morin, 2002, p. 141). If a desirable attribute of a product is highlighted by the advertisement or if the commercial message argues and hyperbolize a certain quality, it expresses what people want to hear and perceive. Beyond the aesthetic charm, seduction develops the fantasy of the creative advertising supported by certain words strategically chosen by its stylistic resources (pun, alliteration, double meanings and grammatical turns). For example, the Denim’s aftershave slogan from 1979: “Denim, for men who don’t have to try too hard”. Using an aftershave means do not need to try too hard? The use of rhetorical strategies in modern visual and popular cultures increases both sales and consumption through visual artificialities, cunning words, and spectacular, fallacious or deceptive strategies. For this reason, Lipovetsky says the advertising does not seduce the homo psychanalyticus, but the homo ludens, because the advertising effectiveness is due to its amusingness (Lipovetsky, 1996, p. 214). Let us remember the renowned Diet Coke commercial from the nineties. The message is “It’s 11.30 ladies!...” and it means “Diet Coke break”. This message is followed and animated with the music “I just want to make love to you” by Etta James (an original of Muddy Waters). The strategy adopted was to provoke desire, to stimulate body attraction, i.e. to seduce. However, the advertisement treats women as targets of seduction and instigates them (their sexual desire) presenting stereotypes: sweated and muscular workmen. The image is properly a visual rhetorical appeal to seduction; it’s pure seduction in popular TV commercials, which invade the private sphere of any home and disseminate the positive values of seduction through the TV screen. There are some modern appropriations of ancient seduction in advertisements. Countless examples demonstrate the association between modern public advertising discourses and antique or classical Greek mythology and culture. More specifically, 247

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the preponderant popular image of the mythic figure of Medusa in contemporary popular culture is that of a dangerous seductress, because this figure is inherently connoted with the idea of transformation from a beautiful woman to a monster. On the other side, Versace’s logo is the snake-entwined head of Medusa. In this case, fashion takes advantage of Medusa and embodies her characteristics to seduce consumers. This logo was chosen by the creator of the Versace brand, who was inspired by classical Greek culture. For Gianni Versace, Medusa is seduction, a fatal attraction. Versace’s head of Medusa symbolizes a classical Greek mythology, the one of a young and beautiful maiden causing temptation to men and jealous to women. One day, the god Poseidon impulsively took the maiden to lie with her at the temple of the goddess Athena, who caught them in the act and, in a fit of rage and jealousy, turned the maiden into a hideous monster with snakes instead hair, and left her face so terrible to behold that anyone who looked her turned stone. Since then, Medusa is most often connected with anger and evil. The hair is one of the most relevant and meaningful symbols in popular culture. Female hair, in particular, is connoted as seductive and narcissistic, meaning an object of admiration. It is a qualifier of female overall appearance and sometimes women in advertisements are shown with their hair mysteriously hiding their face or their eyes (Dyer, 1982, p. 78). As mentioned before, the hair is an important element for Hera seduction in The Iliad and it is frequently used in advertising, especially in certain products (e.g. shampoos) and Versace’s Medusa. Versace’s symbol is a visible copy of Medusa and of what this Greek figure represents, but it is itself not apparent to the senses. Versace’s logo “stands for” either the mythic figure of Medusa or seduction; it invites connotations between the representation (the sign) and the represented (Medusa and seduction, i.e. the first and the second meanings of the symbol respectively). If Medusa is used as a brand symbol for Versace, it sets up a field of (effective or possible) allusions, suggestions, free mental and meaningful associations between the characteristics and values of the Greek mythic figure and those (physical, material, and natural, on the one hand, and psychological, symbolic, unnatural and imputed, on the other hand) of the products. These values constitute a symbolism that can be subtly expressed either in verbal or in iconic forms. All Versace’s products have meanings connoted to Medusa and these meanings are explicitly or implicitly transmitted by the advertising messages, because “the role of advertising in modern industrial societies is to verbalize and to image the possible meanings of things, and to facilitate the exchanges of meanings occurring in social interactions” (Leiss et al., 2005, p. 243). Products and every aspect of modern life have meanings and stimulate interactions, besides they are what they really are, because human relations are motivated by things (objects or products we consume) with meanings; they belong to a semiotic system and to a cultural structure; we communicate with others using and consuming them. Such 248

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social symbolic attribute of objects was shown by Marcel Mauss’s perspective about the potlatch system of gifts’ exchange, according to which the objects have a kind of force, i.e. a power derived from the exchange of objects; “a certain power which forces them to circulate, to be given away and repaid” (Mauss, 1966, p. 41). The social and symbolic relation between people and objects to these traditional cultures is much the same as that of modern and popular cultures, because an approximate value attributable to the objects occurs in Western modern industrial societies, where brands means more than a mere name; they mean social values and moral principles like prestige, elegance, honesty, etc. (e.g. fashion brands, particularly the premium and luxury fashion segment like Versace, Armani, or Hugo Boss). Objects in general and brand products in particular are signs expressing certain qualities. Objects and products have meanings and symbolic values besides the value of use and the commercial value. According to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Eugene Rochberg-Halton, “in almost every culture, objects are chosen to represent the power of the bearer” (1999, p. 26). This power represents different values for men (virile virtues such as strength, bravery, prowess, endurance) and for women (seductiveness, fertility, and nurturance). Therefore, an easy way to create connections between people is through gifts. Mauss explains how interpersonal relations can be strengthened through the routine exchange of simple objects. Mauss’ perspective maintains relevance today, because “material aspects are not usefully separated from the social” (Sahlins, 1976, p. 205). Culture is organized by the material nature of things. The material process is factual, fixed by nature, and independent of man’s will; the cultural process is symbolic, invented, and flexible (arbitrary). For example, the representation of a dashing figure for Versace’s Eros fragrance campaign was also inspired by Greek mythology and means the same and complementary cultural and material logics.

CONCLUSION If contemporary cultures are becoming increasingly visual and popular, they are also becoming filled with advertising messages (signs and images) with seductive and appealing meanings. Such profusion is reshaping the public space, which has more displays or screens. The current and profuse uses of advertisements’ displays or screens in the public space operate as diffusive devices of signs and images of seduction. The consequence is the iconocracy and tautology of both space and culture, which are transformed by these epidictic and apodictic messages of seduction. These discourses re-mean and secularize the public space, the social imaginary and the strategic way to express the collective thought.

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Considering that advertising signs and images are everywhere in the contemporary public space, they give rise to a specific visual rhetoric, following masscommunication strategies to change public space and influence people’s lifestyles. These signs and images contribute to a mass-society, dominated by an iconolatry and hegemony of meanings in an emerging global world. This communicative and social practice shows negatively the role of mass-communication processes in social change, which is an emergent social problem, because it represents a transformation of the social life into a society of the spectacle and seduction (where there is always a seductive spectacle of something producing simulacra) dominated by information and signs (the “sign-form”), according to Jean Baudrillard. It is precisely Baudrillard who develops a semiological theory of the sign describing how commodities provide illusions through media speeches. People receive these illusions and believe in them, because they are presented with seduction. When people receive the seductive speeches (composed by signs and images with values, ideologies, cultural patterns, etc.) and purchase the commodities, they become overpowered. In 1979, Baudrillard published Seduction, pointing out the seduction as an alternative game with signs for social relation based on appearances, artifices; meanings connected; a ritual order with peculiar rules; and ways of thought (1990, p. 21). “It is seduction that prevails in the long term because it implies a reversible, indeterminate order”; “the law of seduction takes the form of an uninterrupted ritual exchange where seducer and seduced constantly raise the stakes in a game that never ends” (Baudrillard, 1990, p. 22). According to Baudrillard, the theoretical hallucination of desire, with its diffuse libidinal psychology, serves as a backdrop to that simulacrum of seduction which one now finds everywhere. All personal and social relations are conditioned by the seductive shadow of discourses. In this sense, “we truly live in an era of seduction” (Baudrillard, 1990, p. 175). Masses are psychologized and seduced by public discourses. But Baudrillard doesn’t recognizes the discourses of simulation as an imposture nor the seduction as a power; the discourses of simulation has only to have seduction act as a simulacrum of affect, desire, or libidinal investment, in a world where the need for these is cruelly felt. According to Baudrillard, what is perverse is what perverts the order of the terms; but here there are no longer any terms to pervert, only signs to seduce. For Baudrillard, seduction beneath discourse, an invisible seduction moving from sign to sign comparable to a secret circulation (1990, p. 80). Everything is driven by seduction or ideology of desire, which is firstly present in signs and images and also in public and rhetorical discourses. Seduction empowers discourses to reach effectively the public. This power is the power to make credible the content of the message, to produce simulacra and mask reality, i.e. to produce a social imaginary.

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For Baudrillard, “seduction is stronger than power because it is reversible and mortal” (1990, p. 46). Unlike power, seduction is not of the order of the real and is never of the order of force, nor relations of force. Today, the seduction of signs is more important than the emergence of any truth or any significant (hidden or not) meaning. When signs mean something in a hidden way, they seduce through its appearance. Either in a hidden way or not, signs have always meanings and create simulation, i.e. they recreate reality as an illusion move in an enchanted world suggested by the idyllic happy end of advertising messages. The rhetorical strategy of seduction is one of deception. A simple sign (e.g. a word, logo, slogan, or image) is filled with meanings and becomes increasingly artistic, seductive, sophisticated, and performing. Due to the visual rhetoric and the ubiquity of displays or screens, images acquired importance in the social practices of transmitting information, making the visual or the visibility more important than the vision itself. This is like a new iconosphere or video civilization, screen culture, the aegis of the image, the “videosphere”, the visual era for Régis Debray in his Life and Death of the Image, or even the primacy of the image and the prevalence of the visible for Giovanni Sartori’s Homo Videns. In general, for Sartori, the culture of the image is created by the primacy of the visible and it carries candescent messages that excite our emotions, ignite our feelings, stimulate our senses and, ultimately, passionate us (Sartori, 1998, p. 115). Advertising trivializes images (verbal or visible representation of something, an object, an idea, or a concept) in the public space. There is always a semantic transitivity shown by the classical expression aliquid stat pro aliquo, i.e. the representative (the image) and the represented (the meaning or the information given by the image). This is precisely the function of a sign as a minimum unit of signification, which indicates a relation between two relata, fulfilling the classical definition aliquid stat pro aliquo, “something stands for or is instead of something else” (Eco, 1984, p. 18). In the semiosphere and iconosphere, it is more evident that a sign is a visible form of something that is itself not apparent to the senses; it “stands for” something else, i.e. “it invites comparison between the representation (the sign) and what it stands for” (Leiss et al., 2005, p. 227). Advertising is a ubiquitous and powerful language, because it uses crafty rhetorical strategies to seduce people to buy more and more products. Therefore, the question is more incisive when people buy products they really don’t want or need. Advertising is not just a matter of products, brands, and announcements about them; it is mainly a matter of persuasion by getting the attention of the audience and keeping the selling idea rather than the product, the brand or the information about them, i.e. it’s a question of using language with the art of speech to argue or to demonstrate the advantages of one product or brand (no matter which one) as

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opposed to others. Advertising has to appeal rather than just to inform or to attract, because if no desire is evoked by the advertisement, it is not likely to be successful (Leiss et al., 2005, p. 138). Advertisements are fictional public discourses, “artful representations of possible worlds, and they strive mightily to redescribe reality, by taking familiar components of everyday life” (Leiss et al., 2005, p. 228). Through effective visual rhetoric, images create multiple meanings which are transformed, reduplicated or re-meant in advertising messages. This process makes advertising a meta-language, a mythopoietic and logopoietic device, i.e. a reproductive mechanism of polysemy through language. Advertising is an antique strategy, but its tools are technological and, therefore, always modern. These tools provide continually new ways to seduce or to manipulate, despite advertisers do not recognize the manipulation “for what they felt was legitimate persuasion”, because “manipulation involves outright deception (lying or falsehood), whereas persuasion is supposed to harbor only allowable exaggeration and embellishment – what is known in the trade as ‘puffery’”, according to D. A. Aaker and J. G. Myers in Advertising Management (as cited in Leiss et al., 2005, p. 10). “Do not lie” is different from “do not tell the whole truth” and both are common human communication practices of influence or decision-making processes in social relations and, obviously, in advertising strategies. Informative and persuasive communications constitute social influence as simply providing consumers with information about a product or a brand, because the messages come with ideological content. The function of ideology is to transform individuals (free people) into subjects (subjected individuals or ideological subjects) through language as a cultural system or through ideological interpellation. Advertising has hidden values and meanings and it is directed to these ideological subjects. These values and meanings are ideological. For Umberto Eco, meaning systems of representation depend on shared communication, rituals and conventions. To follow these systems it is necessary the system of knowledge become a system of signs, according to Eco, because ideology is only recognizable when it is socialized and cultured, i.e. converted into a social, cultural and conventional code of meanings and practices. Following the Marxist notion of ideology as false conscience, advertising is an ideological discourse. Ideology is a message which starts with a factual description trying “to justify it theoretically, gradually being accepted by society through a process of overcoding” (Eco, 1976, p. 290). Ideology as “unconscious codeswitching” is described by Jaspers as “the complex of thoughts and representations appearing as an Absolute Truth to the thinking subject for the interpretation of the world”, but “producing a self-deception, a concealment, an escape (from reality)” (Eco, 1976, p. 312).

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The system of knowledge (the ideology) corresponds to the shared knowledge, as well the system of signs corresponds to the shared code. With these two shared systems, ideology becomes socialized and connoted. Therefore, it would be important to recognize either the relation between codes and messages or the relation between messages and ideologies which are hidden through advertising rhetoric. For Eco, advertising technique takes for granted that messages must be based on preexisting systems of meaning (social and cultural models, ideology, etc.) to achieve its persuasive and seductive effects. People only fight against what is known and deliberately seeks to seduce them, but not against ideology presented in everyday signs and images of advertising with hidden meanings. This depends not only on the effect of the signs used in the discourse but also on the way of speaking. A sign or image of seduction is much more than an apparition; it is a mediator. Signs and images always mean something, because the condition sine qua non to be a sign or an image is to have some content, mean something. That’s the power of signs and every power seduces. All visual/iconic advertising discourses result from a persuasive and significant strategy. The excessive flow of signs and images of seduction affects human social behavior. So, we need to talk about the “ecology of the image”, i.e. the care about the visual pressure we are daily submitted faced a barthesian pan-semiotization of the world. The growth of screens brings a new and large contingent of signs, a sort of a renewed meaning-making semiosphere. These signs we use are not mere signs; they are political or ideological signs, because they have their literal and direct meanings within a media dimension, but most of all they allow a connotative understanding about modern ways of life, needs, and interests within a political, social, and cultural dimension. Considering Gilles Deleuze’s “civilization of image” as a civilization of cliché and the ubiquity of images, the explanation may be related to the iconic inflation that relies on redundancy and, on the other hand, in the concealing, distortion or manipulation of certain images, so that these images conceals the reality, rather than become a medium to uncover it. Thus, there would be a general interest to “hide something with the image”, i.e. its own persuasive natural character (Deleuze, 1985, p. 20). The ubiquity of images was already diagnosed by Debord’s Society of the Spectacle, who thought the whole life of society itself as an accumulation of spectacles, a concrete inversion of life and, as such, the autonomous movement of non-life, which if true is represented as false (1995, p. 12). “The spectacle’s function in society is the concrete manufacture of alienation” (Debord, 1995, p. 23).

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As a sophisticated modern rhetoric, advertising fosters and reproduces the “civilization of cliché”, because discourses represent what a given culture values and homogenizes: uses and costumes, social values and moral principles, lifestyles, needs, and desires. Advertising reveals what a certain culture is. The more rhetorical, visual, and seductive are advertisements, the more hedonistic, consumerist, and popular are cultures. More seductive and public messages mean more distractive and spectacular social life. Image-based advertising is the omnipresence of a corporate commodity culture (Hope, 2008, p. 155). “Advertising endorses and legitimates consumerism by saturating the culture with images intended to position commodity purchase at the center of identity” (Hope, 2008, p. 155) and that’s why advertising constitutes a dominant genre of visual rhetoric. Advertising images are inspired and influenced by a specific visual rhetoric, a mass communication strategy that proliferates in the contemporary public space. The massiveness of visual rhetoric discourses and the hegemony of images lead to the iconocracy, the autocratic power of images that imposes the visible, the dominance and tyranny of visual signs and images. The social representation and the collective imaginary are dominated by visual signs. Images master the common understanding of human relations. Images shape the recognition and profitableness of both social representation and collective imaginary. The iconocracy is the power of images. Such power is increased by a new iconolatry in the public space, which is consequently transformed into an iconosphere, a profusion and massiveness of signs transporting meanings everywhere and about everything with or without intention). The transformation of the public space into an iconosphere is due to the ubiquity and profusion or even a plethora of images (the confusing saturation of images). The iconosphere is the “civilization of the image” of Deleuze, the “screen culture” or the “paradigm of the video” (the “visual era”). It is the primacy of the image, the prevalence of the visible over the intelligible, the preference of seeing without understanding (Sartori, 1998, p. 12). Living under the aegis of an iconocracy of seduction, the power of visual signs and images dominate gradually the public space (the iconosphere). It is the power of signs being present, signifying, and especially hiding what they represent or mean, i.e. the power to imply, saying without saying. The world we inhabit is the real world, but it is also the world of representation. Seduction is about appearances. An appearance is a sort of a representation. Then, seduction is a representation of something, a sign with the power to create or evoke something, because it creates convenient appearances. That’s why all representation is seductive and all seduction is a semantic transitivity.

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REFERENCES Aristotle, . (2004). The Art of Rhetoric. London: Penguin Classics. Barroso, P. (2014). The ethical primacy of advertising rhetoric. Journal of Communication and Society, (25), 360-375. Barthes, R. (1987). A Aventura Semiológica. Lisboa: Edições 70. Baudrillard, J. (1983). In the Shadow of the Silent Majorities or the End of the Social and Other Essays. New York: Semiotext(e). Baudrillard, J. (1990). Seduction. Montreal: New World Perspectives. doi:10.1007/978-1-349-20638-4 Baudrillard, J. (1998). The Consumer Society. London: Sage. Baudrillard, J. (2001). Impossible Exchange. London: Verso. Bignell, J. (2002). Media Semiotics. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press. Blair, J. A. (2008). The Rhetoric of Visual Arguments. In C. A. Hill & M. Helmers (Eds.), Defining Visual Rhetorics (pp. 41–61). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers. Breton, P. (2002). A Palavra Manipulada. Lisboa: Caminho. Bulmer, S., & Oliver, M. B. (2006). Visual rhetoric and global advertising imagery. Journal of Marketing Communications, 12–1. Cannon, J., Baubeta, P., & Warner, R. (2000). Advertising and Identity in Europe: The I of the Beholder. Bristol: Intellect Books. Csikszentmihalyi, M., & Rochberg-Halton, E. (1999). The Meaning of Things - Domestic Symbols and the Self. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Debord, G. (1995). The Society of the Spectacle. New York: Zone Books. Debray, R. (1993). Vida e Morte da Imagem: Uma História do Olhar no Ocidente. Rio de Janeiro: Vozes. Deleuze, G. (1985).’image-Temps. Paris: Les Editions de Minuit. Dyer, G. (1982). Advertising as Communication. London: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9780203328132 Eco, U. (1976). A Theory of Semiotics. Indiana University Press. doi:10.1007/9781-349-15849-2 255

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Eco, U. (1984). Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language. London: MacMillan. doi:10.1007/978-1-349-17338-9 Edensor, T. (2002). National Identity, Popular Culture and Everyday Life. Oxford, UK: Berg. Fennis, B. M., & Stroebe, W. (2010). The Psychology of Advertising. New York: Psychology Press. Giddens, A. (1992). The Transformation of Intimacy - Sexuality, Love and Eroticism in Modern Societies. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Greene, R. (2003). The Art of Seduction. London: Penguin Books. Grijelmo, A. (2000). La Seducción de las Palabras. Madrid: Santillana Ediciones Generales. Heath, R. (2012). Seducing the Unconscious: The Psychology of Emotional Influence in Advertising. Chichester, UK: Wiley Blackwell. doi:10.1002/9781119967637 Hegarty, P. (2004). Jean Baudrillard: Live Theory. London: Continuum. Hill, C. A. (2008). The psychology of rhetorical images. In C. A. Hill & M. Helmers (Eds.), Defining Visual Rhetorics (pp. 25–40). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers. Homer, . (2002). The Odyssey. The University of Michigan Press. Homer, . (2007). The Iliad. Arlington, VA: Richer Resources Publications. Hope, D. S. (2008). Gendered Environments: Gender and the Natural World in the Rhetoric of Advertising. In C. A. Hill & M. Helmers (Eds.), Defining Visual Rhetorics (pp. 155–175). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers. Huxley, A. (1961). On the Margin – Notes and Essays. London: Chatto & Windus. Key, W. B. (1973). Subliminal Seduction. Prentice-Hall. Key, W. B. (1976). Media Sexploitation. Prentice Hall. Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Leiss, W., Kline, S., Jhally, S., & Botterill, J. (2005). Social Communication in Advertising – Consumption in the Mediated Marketplace. New York: Routledge. Lipovetsky, G. (1996). El Imperio de lo Efímero: La Moda y su Destino en las Sociedades Modernas. Barcelona: Editorial Anagrama. 256

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Lipovetsky, G. (2006). A Era do Vazio. São Paulo: Editora Manole. Marcuse, H. (2007). One-Dimensional Man. Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society. New York: Routledge. Marx, K. (1982). Capital – A Critique of Political Economy (Vol. 1). London: Penguin Books. Mauss, M. (1966). The Gift – Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies. London: Cohen & West. Morin, E. (2002). Cultura de Massas no Século XX – O Espírito do Tempo 1-Neurose. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Forense Universitária. Nietzsche, F. (1989). On Rhetoric and Language. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Nietzsche, F. (2007). The Gay Science. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Packard, V. (2007). The Hidden Persuaders. New York: Ig Publishing. Perelman, C. (1977). L’Empire Rhétorique. Paris: Vrin. Perelman, C., & Olbrechts-Tyteca, L. (1991). The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation. University of Notre Dame Press. Plato, . (1997). Phaedrus. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Plato, . (2004). Gorgias. London: Penguin Classics. Sahlins, M. (1976). Culture and Practical Reason. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Sartori, G. (1998). Homo Videns: La Sociedad Teledirigida. Bogotá: Ediciones Santillana. Veblen, T. (2007). The Theory of the Leisure Class. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Wilde, O. (1996). Salomé. Boston: Branden Publishing Company. Wyss, E. L. (2012). Italianicity goes global – National and transcultural strategies in advertising discourse. In S. Hauser & M. Luginbühl (Eds.), Contrastive Media Analysis: Approaches to linguistic and cultural aspects of mass media communication (pp. 179–197). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. doi:10.1075/ pbns.226.11wys

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KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Advertising Semiotics: Study of signs and general systems of language; understanding of the meaning structures and persuasive strategies of communication used in advertisements. Iconocracy: The autocratic power of images that imposes the visible, the dominance and tyranny of visual signs and images in the public space. Ideological Sign: Verbal or non-verbal sign intentionally impregnate with values, subliminal information or hidden meanings to seduce and compel people (e.g. to buy a product when they receive advertising messages). Rhetoric: A technique, an art, a form or mode of enunciating or saying, which improves the effect of the message, the influence of what is actually enunciated or said. Seduction: Act, strategy or process to deceive with art and cunning, influencing by exciting hope or desire; force capable of overcoming the resistance of the seduced face the onslaught of the seducer.

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Scepticism and Seduction Cesar Kiraly Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil

ABSTRACT This is the course we intend to follow: to put together the specific features of sceptical seduction and see the means it employs as well as, when possible, pointing out the changes in direction made by the sceptical tradition. At the same time, we believe that this kind of seduction can have possible political implications when it is compared with the immorality caused by dogmatic seduction. By this is meant that we seek to show that the kind of seduction exercised by sceptics appears to us to be better than that practised by dogmatists, especially with regard to its effects on political life. Setting out from the factors outlined here, we seek to show that the kind of seduction practised by dogmatists tends to lack any sense of responsibility towards the seduced through the protection granted to the seducer who is regarded as better or even superior in the way that the cruelty of the seduction is concealed. It seems to us that the seduction practised by the sceptic maintains an explicit form of cruelty and thus does not bring about the effects of immorality on people’s lives.

SECTION I We want a cure when no cure can any longer be expected, when there is no longer a chance of a possible cure. (Bernhard, 2011, p. 237) It is no exaggeration to describe the problem facing philosophy as forming a counterpart with the theme of seduction. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-0525-9.ch012 Copyright ©2017, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

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Indeed, it can be said that it was the unforeseen effects of seduction that led to the death of Socrates. The Socratic method of going out of the city and not evading any kind of argument, (by being willing to escape from the pólis and shelter under a tree) and giving free reign to discussion – or even his famous capacity for resilience and resistance to cold or hunger – all this can be regarded as kinds of seduction. This even applies to the belief that he allowed himself to be condemned to death rather than make use of spurious but persuasive arguments since there seems to be little doubt that he could have easily evaded the accusations if he had wished, given the remarkable gift he had for speaking. The decision not to flee but to die as a free Athenian, is also deeply alluring. The responsibility of adopting a democratic stance is very enticing too. On the other hand, what is, so to speak, a sophisticated irresponsibility or a willingness to follow a deviant path in the world through words by giving precedence to non-being over being, and regard man and his lies as the measure of all things, to support a thesis one day and then on the next to contradict it with better arguments and finally to acquit Helen of Troy and her involuntary seductiveness as simply the most elaborate form of seduction – all this is highly seductive. Seduction can be found everywhere – both in the virtuous stronghold of Socrates and in the demiurgic capacities of Gorgias, to speak of characters who occupy a central position but seek to be on the fringes. These figures illustrate what is laughable about the dynamics of being captive, while their cynicism at the same time adds a great deal to their appeal. Until now, nobody has been able to say who can or cannot be seductive: it is a question of power and the person who seduces is the person who is able to seduce. The democratic life of the 5th Century B.C. is what can best reveal the dangers and delights of seduction. The mere crumb of autocracy is enough to interrupt this exchange of fire in so far as it can determine who should allow us to be attracted to them or who can be in the position to exercise a magnetic power. In a world riddled with seductive stratagems, we are encouraged to make an inquiry into those who are seduced. Are the seducers in some way responsible for those they seduce? This is the question that engrosses us. Having a complete control over the effects of seduction would be impossible and even absurd but to take this indeterminate stance as a point of departure would be very irresponsible. What does this mean exactly? It would be quite irresponsible to assume that the feelings caused by seduction are uncontrollable and this safeguards us from having to concern ourselves about its effects. Perhaps a fine distinction can be drawn between the kind of sophism practised by Socrates and others who believe the kind of effect exerted by seduction can be regarded as acceptable even to the point of it causing someone’s death. But what does it exactly mean to seduce? It can be said that seduction is sweet when the argument is bitter. Arguing in what can be defensively called rhetoric, is pitted against the underlying strength of 260

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the rival. In an argumentative confrontation, the objective is to win. To be victorious, at least in a triumphalist sense, is to make the adversary recognize that you are right. Without doubt, being right helps a good deal to win the argument but it is not essential. A good rhetorical ploy is to force the opponent to admit that you are in the right even when it is not the case, when he concedes that it is at least possible. Seduction can even make a surreptitious appearance in the admission that you are right so long as a clash of opinions is avoided or an opinion is expressed in a nuanced way. The need to argue is strongly indicative of the fact that perhaps seduction is no longer concerned with achieving effects. It is not that it is impossible to think clearly or be creative in a clash of opinions because unusual ideas can arise from a pressurized environment – but it is not very easy for this to occur. In general terms, it can be said that the purpose of a clash of opinions is to force opponents to change their opinion. There are those who seduce in areas of conflict, and hence argument becomes a matter of style and not a confrontation, as in analytical philosophy. On the other hand, seduction is ideally suited to creativity and thinking because it involves a degree of complicity, even coldness, for example when the seducer and seduced decide between themselves who is who – this allows them to attain a goal together, when it would be difficult for them to do so alone. It can be said that argument is technical and seduction poetic. Hence, seduction is a bilateral delivery on the part of the will. For this reason, unless it is a kind of conflict, it can be practised on an equal footing between unequal partners as for example, in the relationship between the master and the disciple. If the analogy can be accepted, it is much more a question of an elegant (but not acrobatic) dance rather than anything else. The condition required for seduction is to be willing. It can be said it is much more profound to be in this state than to make a decision to surrender oneself to another’s will. Seduction is allowing oneself to be led to a region that is unfamiliar but which can be willingly signed up to, even though it may not be something that can be chosen. This is so much the case that despite all the positive features (as well as the fact that it remains more important for philosophy than lines of arguments) – while they are offered in a seductive style, many philosophic viewpoints are expressed in much more than what are strictly speaking clashes of opinion – in other words, seduction is broadly regarded as a negative phenomenon. The whole inspired environment that is unleashed by it is unable to redeem it. It is well known that it is argument and not seduction that leads us to act against our wishes. We are aware that when faced with seduction, everyone knows what is happening, to such an extent that nobody is capable of being seduced without being ready and willing to accept it. There is no doubt about the fact that the act of seducing is one phenomenon while deceiving is something completely different. It is certain that its attachment to inspiration cannot spare it from its accusers while a well-conducted argument is more impressive 261

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than seduction since everything in it is geared towards being small. Thus a good argumentative performance should be rewarded even though it fails to explain why arguing has a positive image, compared with the terrible image of seduction. In our view, however much we may owe to seduction, arguments undeservedly win all the laurels. Some of the responsibility for the bad reputation of seduction can easily be attributed to Plato. He saw the risk of the seducer being exposed and that the bilaterality of seduction does not involve reverting to a sharing of responsibility. Socrates, could conduct an argument with ease but preferred to seduce and even in the absence of the seducer and the seduced (and the seduction exercised by the seduced through set rules), his attitude is regarded as a sign of immaturity. He was urged to pay the price on his own for having, in philosophical terms, inhabited the world of circumstances in which the thoughts, or for want of a better term, sociability arose. Plato dreamt up the idea of the Academy to protect the seducers. On the basis of this and what was carried out there, nobody could be accused of being only a seducer, because being trained in the Academy entailed obtaining a real command of the intellectual disciplines. But as well as this, it is very important to seek to show that people learnt in the Academy what they could do to exert seduction through incidental means. In other words, seducing without being seduced or rather, seducing without being exposed to the risk of a lack of control, meant allowing it to be carried out without any sense of responsibility being imposed. The academic seducer is not exposed to the same temptations as Socrates was. In the first place, it should be understood that it is not only the seducer who is protected but also society. The establishment of the Academy also accompanies the decadence of democracy. Although a number of factors must be added, the city can always favour the liveliness of seduction when exercised in a direct manner and not just incidentally. This means that in this case, society only has to defend itself since it is itself the motivating factor that can encourage and gratify those who are talented. In this way, Plato not only imagined ways of selecting those with pretensions but also selected the seducers. Even though there may be better aspirants than others, in philosophy there will be a seducer who is more prepared to carry it out although on most occasions, only in an indirect way. The ideal marriage will take place when the best aspirant i.e. the person with the best intentions, is allowed to be seduced by the best seducer – the whole mechanism taking place at a distance. Indeed, what makes viable its incidental features is the growing importance of written culture, since the voice still presupposes a degree of proximity even when it is amplified by a tragic mask. The written dialogue can be taken as exemplifying a referred indirect/ incidental action. After all, a written dialogue is not reallya dialogue. However, it is not the only way to preserve the seducers. What is essential in this strategy is to establish something that makes a gradual contact with the seduced in such a way 262

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that if someone is seduced, later those who have been seduced begin to carry out seductions among themselves. Thus the incidental features are practised in a more advanced way and it is only then that they can be exported to the world without disturbing the indirect dynamics. Let us draw closer to our subject. There are two ways of seducing in philosophical terms which were described and structured after the death of Socrates, in a defensive way; one is what is called dogmatic and the other, which will be the object of this article,is sceptical. The sceptical way of seducing also evolved from the academy and as well as not being homogeneous, is not free from historical incongruities. Some of these are important to us in so far as there is a need to release scepticism from possible traps that they are armed against but which are not our central concern here. For this reason, we seek some form of harmony between the modes of practice and scepticism, even though this has not been undertaken in historical terms. The link between scepticism and the Academy is so tenuous that in the period of Arcesilaus and later of Carneades, the practice was introduced of using the word academic as a synonym for sceptical. What matters however, is that scepticism always keeps an external attachment to the Academy. This takes place in two ways: in the simple fact of the non-academic sceptical terms and in the constant application of scepticism to the outside world. It is in this second realm that the most important features can be found for understanding sceptical seduction. The external benchmark that is always cited by sceptics is the figure of Pyrrho of Elis. He is partly a minor Socrates and partly a minor Gorgias at the same time. The seduction is carried out in everyday life but it does not take place in a search for what things are, but rather by the impossibility of carrying it out in either a positive or negative way, when exercising seduction is a little strange. In what would later be called suspension of judgement, Pyrrho supposedly had to be protected from savage hounds and a deep shaft beside two tracks that showed a possible way of being sent to Thales of Miletus since he could not know if the dog was really savage or the fall imminent. If these anecdotes about the seizure of free will are true, it is certain that this did not take place the whole time. Furthermore, in the course of his life, Pyrrho had some pre-Socratic traits as a result of his periods of living as a recluse, remaining at home in the exercise of his few philosophical tasks and even at times ashamed, like when he was washing animals etc. It is good to know that the prejudices displayed by the Greeks such as those against women and their attitudes to keeping slaves, did not make any sense to him. Pyrrho adheres to life but not excessively. His relationship with his disciples is also rather unusual in so far as he seduces them and feels a sense of responsibility towards them but prevents any bond being forged with his wisdom since this would presuppose a kind of knowledge which was, so to speak, impossible for him. Pyrrho acted in a distinctly cynical way or like the Cyrenaics, although what he mainly had in common with the cynics was 263

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the fact that he caused astonishment in some of his activities. However, Pyrrho did not seek to amaze or shock people by attempting to reveal something about the nature of conventions or possible signs of hypocrisy. This is not to say that he took them for truths or celebrated his reasons for failing to explain the meaningless dynamics. This is the course we intend to follow: to put together the specific features of sceptical seduction and see the means it employs as well as, when possible, pointing out the changes in direction made by the sceptical tradition. At the same time, we believe that this kind of seduction can have possible political implications when it is compared with the immorality caused by dogmatic seduction. By this is meant that we seek to show that the kind of seduction exercised by sceptics appears to us to be better than that practised by dogmatists, especially with regard to its effects on political life. Setting out from the factors outlined here, we seek to show that the kind of seduction practised by dogmatists tends to lack any sense of responsibility towards the seduced through the protection granted to the seducer who is regarded as better or even superior in the way that the cruelty of the seduction is concealed. It seems to us that the seduction practised by the sceptic (by insisting on exposing the seducer and always keeping its fulfilment in question) maintains an explicit form of cruelty and thus does not bring about the effects of political immorality on people’s lives.

SECTION II I always loved Montaigne more than anyone else. I used to seek refuge in my Montaigne whenever I experienced physical fear. I let myself be captivated – I even let myself be guided and seduced by Montaigne. Montaigne was always my saviour and redeemer. If in the end I always distrusted my extensive philosophical family which only had room for German and Italian nephews – all of whom, I should add suffered a very early death – it is true that I always felt I was in good hands with Montaigne. (Bernhard, 2011, p. 235-237) Pierre Aubenque, in his fine Histoire de la philosophie, (compiled by François Châtelet, and published in 1972), devotes several pages to philosophic scepticism. In these, he states that it is a characteristic of scepticism that it cannot be regarded as a school. We should add that it is a distinctive feature of the hazards of seduction when exercised by scepticism, that they cannot be associated with a school. This sounds doctrinaire since the more someone speaks of belonging to a school in terms of the name itself, and gives reasons for it, the more he seems to be only repeating something that he has heard. Moreover, anyone who adheres to a school, is always operating under the protection of a kind of alibi. Being protected in this 264

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way sanctions the use of cruelty since it means the burden of its consequences are shared. According to Aubenque, scepticism is shrouded in obscurity, because, to speak figuratively, it consists of a current on the high seas. The sea can be clearly discerned while at the same time it is being crossed by all kinds of competing movements. Scepticism is a current of this kind but above all, it is a complex way of handling styles. Moreover, a parallel can be drawn between scepticism and schools of painting. Like painters, sceptics can be approached through the way that they shape appearances or rather, only at the time when their representation is being undertaken. It can be said that someone is a painter of a particular kind of painting if at a certain time he has produced a painting that belongs to this category. However, if for some reason he changes his style, or gives up painting, it is inappropriate for him to be referred to as a painter of a particular kind – for example, out of respect. In the case of a painter of such or such a school, while he is painting in one style or another, it can only be claimed that he was a painter of this style after he had abandoned it. To be sure, if his career is pursued, he will have to paint to prove that he was able to keep close to what he once was, but all he can show is that is what he is being. The change of style among painters can even be a serious matter for the history of art, as in the case of some forms of modern painting in which a key feature is a discursive statement about the speciousness of all the styles that are not being practised. This can even reach the point where we are faced with the possible assertion that painting itself as an activity is factitious. But clearly this is only important from a subjective standpoint. An objective standpoint is different and here painting retains its validity even though its reputation might be slightly tarnished. Despite being celebrated in subjective terms, no attempt is made to reproduce the outer factitiousness of the rejected style. The work of the painter retains its validity with regard to the painting. Thus scepticism occurs within the obscurity to which it refers. Aubenque, finds it strange that it is found “in the majestic course of the official schools” (Aubenque, 1974, p. 192), because even if the sceptic changes his style, his previous scepticism remains valid. Scepticism entails manoeuvring styles so as to allow the overlapping and accumulation of philosophies. This does not take place with dogmatic philosophies, even when viewed from an objective standpoint because the discovery of a new truth encompasses the falsehoods of previous notions and the earlier mistake may even be the condition for finding out what is correct. The belief that it is philosophies rather than thoughts that accumulate in history does not form a part of the sceptical perspective. Either the dogmatic or sceptical philosophers are right, but if it is the sceptics, this does not make any sceptical sense since, paradoxically, it means their ideas can only be made intelligible in dogmatic terms. Hence, in a strict sense the sceptic does not exist except when he is being sceptical. At most, the word sceptic can be employed in a rhetorical sense: someone 265

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is said to be a sceptic as a term of reference at the time when he is practising his scepticism. Scepticism can thus serve as an expression for all the occasions when he has manifested scepticism (Aubenque, 1974, p. 192). The specific features of sceptical seduction can be defined in this way because it refers to a kind of thinking that cannot be put into cold storage only to be made use of later – it is something that only exists at the time when it occurs. Hence, one can only be seduced by a seducer who is completely vulnerable, since one undergoes the risk of being exposed to the risk at a time when his attention is distracted by another activity that does not involve seduction. The seducer does something else and then seduces. It would be much easier if the sceptic already had his scepticism ready at hand in a container which just had to be warmed up and devoted entirely to seduction; at any rate, not having an alibi is the specific feature of this seduction and what makes it so seductive. The sceptic is like a magician who has still not learnt his trick and runs the risk of drowning to death – this is what makes his performance so captivating. Hence arises the difficulty of a sceptical piece of writing because this only exists when the formal elements of the writing achieve the same effects as the spoken word. This means that a sceptical piece of writing can be defined as when a passage that has been written can be added as a formal resource that can be read in the same way as it was being written. Thus although scepticism is a live and a burning issue, sceptical writing is a huge problem. It is a truth that departs from what makes it feasible and an offshoot of philosophical invention of the kind found in Montaigne’s essays - hence it is clear that other means need to be found for tackling problems, either through an extended essay or in some other way. Here we only seek to point out the problem and not address it. Scepticism, as stated earlier, is not something that goes “barefoot”; moreover, the seduction that is exerts can be found in classical antiquity as well as modernity in a tradition that is able to provide a wealth of features for the historiographer that are worth exploring. Even in the Middle Ages, at a time when it featured less prominently, one can detect from the readings of Cicero in the Academy de Cícero, as well as the extension of his ideas to the philosophies of Philo of Alexandria and St. Augustine, an interesting interpretation of distrust with regard to values. This is so powerful that it provides thoughts as divergent as those of Rousseau, Schopenhauer and Kierkegaard. It would be difficult to gauge the degree of unease that would be caused in a world where a strict form of scepticism was being practised. At the same time, it would be unrealistic to ignore how far doubts expressed about its values act as a contributory factor of the movement we are describing. In addition, the way that this line of thinking can be displaced from everyday life, has made it clearer to the sceptics how they can escape from the absurdities originating from writing – for example, through the development of forms emerging from the essay 266

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such as aphorisms. Sceptics feel at ease in the world but this does not mean that they are unable to feel bad about such or such a manner or by the values that they inculcate or are unable to learn from this with the members of their family, as the dogmatists learn from their perversity. If this is not going barefoot, it is also not treading on the clouds since it occupies the same floor as others who carry out philosophy in an unlimited number of ways and share several features. First, as stated earlier, it is not unusual to place the sceptics alongside the sophists, (except with regard to what they glean from their learning), owing to their lack of passion or anxiety which is shared with stocism and epicureanism. If stoics and epicureans seduce through their theses, the sceptic does so either through an absence of theoretical propositions or by subverting them and seeking non-assertionuntil such time when there is no longer a need to carry out a search (Aubenque, 1974, p.192). This is a suitable course of action for scepticism and since it arises in many forms, the sceptic suspends judgement because some appearances cannot be distinguished from others. Thus an experience is shared with indifference. The sceptic is concerned with several things but not his indifference in this sense. However, since he sets out from the fact that appearances are not distinct, it would be a mistake for him to regard them in any other way unless when fixed at a single observation point. A sophist would be able to accept the proposition from this, that appearances are true, or in other words, that honey is sweet and sour at the same time – at least this is one conclusion; in the case of a sceptic, there are still several alibis behind it. At any rate, honey seems to me to be sweet. It would be possible to compile a story of the effects of sceptical practices on the dogmatists. As in the case of Aristotle, with the sophists this would provide us with issues that are construed in a dogmatic way by the sceptics. The most traditional of these matters is the question of the inaccessibility of truth. Thus a dogmatist believes that one of the consequences of embarking on a sceptical practice is that it will lead to an understanding that truth is inaccessible. A second matter which clearly emerges from the first is making a critique of reason. Broadly speaking, reason is important for determining truth, but the sceptics would criticize this reason for the way it proceeds and it is by following this path that scepticism gives meaning to its tropes. These are inexhaustible and can be obtained through dogmatism. Moreover, they serve as landmarks of the journeys undertaken and allow the sceptics to communicate with each other about their mode of dismantling possible traps – at least those which are predictable and thus the easiest to avoid. They are not theses but rather suggestions grounded on the experience of how to handle the usual kinds of tricks. The tropes noticed by Sextus Empiricus are those which were collected previously by Aenesidemus and Agrippa. As stated earlier, a dogmatist would read them as critiques of reason. The tropes of Aenesidemus and Agrippa deal with the same

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cases from different perspectives. It can be said that Aenesidemus gathers them like someone seeking to avoid ambushesthat can be found in different modes of life and in the case of Agrippa, they are those found in thinking. Aenesidemus speaks from the standpoint of a landscape painter (as we will later speak of Montaigne), and Agrippa from that of an abstract painter, as we will later discuss with regard to Hume. In the opinion of Aenesidemus, what matters is that the appearances are indistinct: 1. Since there is a wide range of animals and they belong to many different species, it is plausible to believe that they perceive things in disparate modes, 2. People are also diverse even though their disparities may not be so evident as those found among all the other animals, but they are subject to the same kind of expectations with regard to their specific features, 3. In a similar way their sensory organs are diverse (for example, their hearing is different from their sight and so on) and in a real sense, their different circumstances provide them with different standpoints, e.g. distances from each other, places, positions, spirits etc which trigger a multiplicity of views, 4. Many things are composite which means one feature is perceived instead of another or perceived before another, which also causes diferences, 5. The same thing occurs with regard to frequency. If something only occurs once or from time to time, it is more diverse than when it occurs all the time. If we pay close attention, it is clear that Aenesidemus can tell us everything we need to know if we want to describe a landscape with all its variegated features. It is as if someone says: – Look, if you want to describe something directly it is no use giving a crude account of what is in front of you; you must pay attention to the blurring of appearances and this is shown in what causes differences. Thus if somebody wishes to draw close to appearances, and has fixed ideas about how to describe them in an appropriate way, it is a case of setting aside pretences. The appearances themselves, broadly speaking, convey a general idea. In other words, the landscape is well described when we not only take account of the fact that the phenomena are different between people and animals, but also that they appear to be different because of this. On the other hand, things are unable to perceive although the composition comprising them seems like a set of perceptive capacities – to such an extent that it is influenced by place, position, incidents etc. Finally, when we describe people, their objects and their lives, it is a case of heeding the fact that there are different modes of life and that this makes all the difference. This descriptive sensibility of Aenesidemus, as we said, is later refined when pursued further by Montaigne. With regard to the description of modes of thought, Agrippa makes us aware that the dogmatists employ relatively repetitive kinds of thinking. However, a failure to note them makes the description of the landscape of thinking and the exercise of 268

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abstraction very inadequate. Agrippa shows us a type of golden proportion in a dogmatic way of thinking. It is as if it were a conch that contained a sense of proportion and followed a regular anatomical pattern. This implies that the dogmatic way of thinking is full of small systemic details. But in that case what form is this exactly? The first thing to note is that a faithful representation of dogmatic thinking must take account of the constant struggle between the sensitive and the intelligible. The dogmatic image of thinking either states that truth is sensitive or that it is intelligible. A real conflict arises if the intersections are obstructed to the extent of requiring a return to the infinite or in other words, if the basis of the sensitive is the sensitive which is sensitive etc. and the same applies to what is intelligible. These links are constant and never circumstantial. There is no demonstration (or proof of any kind) of a separation between matter and the idea; the dogmatic is already assumed to be a given fact and for this reason, its way of thinking resembles a conch which is enclosed. This is not just a hypothesis because it refuses to admit that it might be mistaken. In reality, this is its distinction – it is true even when everything points to the contrary. Thus this closure can be regarded as a golden protection. Later, the description given by the sceptic should show it as being tautological. Once they have been noted, the physical landscapes, the dogmatism and the thinking, will be described in a more exhaustive way. It should be hastily added that this can only be done by someone who also wishes to outline a clear critique of reason. There is always someting on display in the sceptic. This is because in the world described on the basis of Aenesidemus, reason appears to make mistaken demands whereas in the mode of Agrippa, it seems as if it has emerged as an error at the beginning of its trajectory. As a result, when defending reason from an attack that it has not undergone, the dogmatist seeks to enter into a dialogue with the sceptic. This involves discussing the descriptions and why these tropes will have to be established. Above all, the sceptics are asked to describe themselves as being engaged in an activity that will result in them not being able to say anything about anything – to which the sceptic answers that it is really very difficult to say something about something. This power would be beyond the tropes of Agrippa or the inhabitants of the world of Aenesidemus, if the criteria were followed and the proofs put on display. It should be noted that criteria and proofs are two dimensions of a single response and not an initiative: Thus one of the tropes shows the futility of the concept of causality: a body cannot be the cause of another body (since a body cannot depart from its intrinsic nature); a bodiless substance cannot be the cause of another bodiless substance (since a state of incorporeality is incapable of contact; moreover, without contact, there is no passion or activity); on the other hand, how can there be any degree of homogeneity between cause and effect when the body cannot be the cause of incorporeality 269

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or incorporeality be the cause of the body ? The conclusion is that there is no such thing as cause. (Aubenque, 1973, p. 193) The criterion of truth is the reversal of the will, (perhaps erroneously), when a reply is being offered. Scepticism offers a reply to the problem of achieving consistency and the dogmatist hears that truth does not exist. Although the sceptic outlines a view that is called ‘probabilism’ in the demand for criteria which only take account of circumstances, he does not have to abdicate or suspend his judgement. He does this as someone who seeks to explain the inconsistency of certain beliefs that are apprehended in a descriptive way and not as someone who puts forward a new theory of truth. Scepticism does not offer a reply but puts something else in its place. It is natural that by repeating the same thing very often and comparing the results, one begins to become good at the activity. Although there is no one particular way of practising scepticism, it is worth noting one practice that can be broadened. A sceptic does not say: “you are not a sceptic”, but rather “you are not sceptical enough”. It is very alluring to embark on an activity meticulously when one is unable to say how exactly it should be undertaken but can only point out any lack of intensity. In addition, the act of describing is a seductive activity because it presupposes a close involvement with things in themselves; it is seductive to occupy a position of allowing oneself to be beguiled in a way that puts one at ease. In contrast with other positions, scepticism is concerned with the way things really are. As regards describing the mode of Agrippa, apparently the sceptic will be wasting his time if he is devoted to examining something that might distract him from his own kind of sceptisicim but not (whatever it is that holds the attention of the sceptic) if he needs all of his scepticism to be able to proceed with the description. Thus he is never wasting his time on occasions when he is diverted by something that holds his attention, if by doing so, he brings alive the entire nature of scepticism. It is a subtle ruse that is employed to resist being ‘captured’. Although he may not know what he is going to do, if asked about what he is involved in, he is able to describe what he is doing. Hence, from an objective perspective, it seems that the sceptic might well always be doing the same thing. The key word here is investigation. He is always investigating. Despite the great debt that modern science owes to scepticism, this philosophy does not seem to be prompted by curiosity because it is principally concerned with the particular operations that hold its interest. When faced with something trivial, it will not have to investigate the question further once the enigma of the mechanism has been deciphered. The description may even be employed to decipher an enigma when exploring multiple perspectives along a particular path. A supposed crisis of reason will be triggered by this after the question has been described at consider270

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able length and scepticism will then be in a position to put an end to this mystery. However, the point is that when the sceptic is moved by curiosity, his description will either become obsessive or it will reach a conclusion. The investigation progresses through its ability to overcome this disruption. The sceptic carries out an investigation because it is a means of keeping him at ease. He does not want to know it even though it might lead to him producing something but rather he craves the peacefulness that can be obtained when his eyes settle on what appears. The dogmatist is concerned about not being deceived by the water in the river which makes the oar look bent or by the distance which makes somebody look as large as a windmill. The sceptic is not troubled by this although in his practice he ends up by enacting these amusing ways in which appearances appear. Likewise, it can be noted in his investigation of speech that everybody says something different from what appears to be the case. Plurality is not an unsettling factor. However, if, (particularly when made up of philosophical statements), it is accompanied by an identical or higher number of claims to truth, it can lead to some degree of distress. These pretensions to truth allow the sceptic to witness something that makes him suffer – the distress of the dogmatist in craving for truth – his will to grasp it even when not having the power to do so. The pain of the world causes suffering and leads to disruption but is made still worse when associated with claims to know the truth. What is already woven into a dogma will suffer from the mismatch between its beliefs and the real world. Moreover, the life of someone who has still not decided between various alternatives will not be easy if believing in a dogma is really just a question of choice. The claim to truth unsettles indifference and induces one to select certain differences as being more different than others, as if there were glimpses of truth that might lie behind appearances. However, the opposing arguments strengthen this indifference and restores the equipollence that is necessary for the description. It is this equipollence that allows the suspension of judgement – a state in which it is possible to begin to describe. A state of peacefulness follows in the wake of this suspension as a shadow trails behind a body. It should be said that equipollence is not moral since indifference is not the subject itself with regard to appearances but rather of appearances among themselves It is thus reasonable to think that scepticism leads us to silence in contrast with the common loquacity found in everyday experience and dogmatism. The inordinate amount of speaking or writing by the dogmatists can be attributed to the eternal gyrations of speciousness that surround truth. As a result, the question aphony or dumbness is completely different in the two traditions. In the case of the sceptic, aphony is the result of peacefulness achieved though a suspension of judgement. Speech simply begins with the loss of meaning unless some means are found of dissipating the affirmation that things are, and these forms of dissipation are hard 271

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to reproduce at the time when their validity is bound to circumstances which have allowed their discovery. One initial strategy of scepticism is to recalibrate the meaning of the verb “to be”. It is almost impossible to speak without this verb and for this reason the sceptic has established a rule for it to be suitably heard. If it says that honey is sweet, it must be heard that honey seems to be sweet. At any rate, after a period of time, even this resignification begins to lose its meaning and hence it is necessary to seek new ways of stating its appearance. An additional speech is a resource in so far as it only adds objects and new features without binding them to each other although this imposes considerable constraints on the resources of language, as well as being somewhat noisy. Silence is a more elegant manner of accomplishing it. On the other hand, the dogmatic path began with aphasia. The aphony of the dogmatist is the state of not being able to utter anything but despite this, seeking feeble ways of doing so in a way that represents a speech that is constrained by its original incapacity. As a result, dogmatism gives way to this emphasis in the form of a stammer and as a reaction to aphony. If the sceptic were to seek to máster the problem of dogmatic aphony, he would deem that it was necessary to deal with it before having to stumble behind the persistence of the speech. This takes place because from the standpoint of the dogmatist, it is a question of honor to show in words that he has seen something and the result of this is naturally to express it in vocal terms. The dogmatist believes that aphony occurs in the following ways: 1. At the outset, he has a doctrinal attitude and follows a version of the truth expressed by someone who has witnessed it and who in substantiating it, is only able to stutter. Although there may be an element of weariness in the version that follows (as a result of it being repeated so often that it can be taught), the truth is justified. The reason for this is that the indoctrinated dogmatist feels an acute anxiety which acts as a sign that there really exists something behind things. If a fatiguing discourse is all there is to explain this anxiety, it is at least better than not having anything. 2. The dogmatist sees truth – albeit not all of it - as perhaps a result of his studies, (since one of the ways of dealing with anxiety about the truth is to surrender oneself to one’s addictions – not least to the constraints of an obsession). As well as this, it is a sign of what can plausibly reflect his own anxiety and allow him to have a closer rapprochement with it. In this case what is it that allows the dogmatist to bear witness to the truth? 3. He wants to count on other people. In attempting to speak, he finds that the truth is much greater than his capacity to express it in language, as well as feeling an understandable excitement - so what happens? He tries to speak but is unable 272

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to utter anything. This dumbness makes him even more nervous. So he keeps insisting until strange sounds begin to come out of his throat and after a time his voice comes back to him although inexorably distorted by the aphony he has sought to overcome. The dogmatist who acquires a lively version of the truth – at least to start with – is no longer tired because without the doctrine, he is able to stammer. The alibi of stammering, as was stated earlier, is that, in itself, it is a sign of the experience of truth which authorizes him to speak. Since the truth has not been viewed in its entirety, the dogmatic discourse is incomplete; however, it seeks to be comprehensive through adopting intellectual strategies that show the components of truth that were never detected. In modern thought, these strategies are grouped under the heading of systems. Thus the hellenistic philosophy of subjectivity ends in a confrontation that is the very negation of the whole dialogue. Scepticism is the observation of the dissolution of a certain conception of the logos: this is a non-dialectical logos, which in the wide diversity of the hellenistic era, became dogmatic so that it could oppose the violence of things, take immediate steps to overcome the problem of making urgent decisions and (something that is forgotten from the lessons of Plato and Aristotle), dispense with its own relativity. (Aubenque, 1973, p.195) Both sceptical and dogmatic aphony exert different kinds of seduction. The dogmatic does this by promising to provide access to the invisible which serves as a sign of hesitant speech through which modern theories of representation can be structured. The sceptical is based on the incongruous nature of the distance between the sign and the thing. The sign is an anticipation of something like smoke of fire, because it is in fact the thing. Later it can be apprehended that sceptical aphony is opposed to the admission of the sign as evidence of the invisible. This means that sceptical seduction is exercised by interrupting the prerogatives of speech such as those that can be found in doctrinal relationships. The dogmatist hopes that the disciple is engaged in dialogues of enlightenment in which the results can be foreseen, that is, the acceptance of what has been seen. In addition, before the aphony can be confronted as a result of a glimpse of the truth, the master expects that his listeners will be subordinated to the breaks in his speech. The sceptic converses (but does not enter into a dialogue in the philosophical sense) because he does not know where he will end up – if he will lead or will be led, if he will fulfil or disappoint expectations. The very frustration that arises from the unpredictability of the sceptic, is a means of precluding claims to truth. Thus the seductive power of sceptical truth lies in the fact that it does not need to break the

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silence. It can simply avoid saying anything. If it utters something, there is no need to listen. This is the special feature of its seduction – its gratuitousness. There is nothing worthwhile to teach or to learn. This is not to say that the sceptic does not teach anything but only that there is nothing that has to be taught, or any set pattern for carrying it out. The sceptic is the seducer to the extent that he thwarts the verticality that exists between the master and disciple. If the stoics and epicureans can be recognized by their clothes, if it is even possible to apprehend a hierarchical difference between them, this was never possible among the sceptics because they dressed like anyone else. I think that it would not be strange if a sceptic occasionally decided to dress like a stoic or epicurean, as a means of recognizing the fact that they might just be anyone. To exist like a sceptic would then not be a problem.

SECTION III I never had a father or mother but I’ve always had my Montaigne. (Bernhard, 2011, p. 237) Who are those who are indifferent to existing and for this reason usher in a form of seducing that shows a lack of any aspiration? They are ordinary people who began to act like sceptics and who through contact with sceptics or sceptical writings began to act like sceptics. Moreover, these are people who were previously philosophers but as a result of suffering and subsequent attempts to remedy this, began to act like sceptics. Although it seems improbable, this is the only situation in which being a sceptic does not entail bein seduced. Being identified as a sceptic is not so important, except for the fact that the seduced attributes scepticism to the seducer. If this is the case, it means the seducer seduces as a means of suspending judgement. It can be compared to the approach adopted by modern sceptics who no longer employ a strategy where they are immersed in discussions about how to acquire a spirit that is resistant in an anomolous way. What is more, this approach entails suspending judgement and describing scepticism itself, even with regard to the act of writing. It might be that this kind of scepticism is more a myth than anything else, since it does not clearly denote even to a Pyrrhonist, that there will be what could be called the first accident of this type. For this reason, scepticism is not a sociological condition that results from periods of crisis. In its variegated form, it can be descxribed as disbelief. It is thus difficult to say whether scepticism is a philosophy or not when its forms of seductive appeal are so peripheral that they mean something else other than thought. What is certain is that there are sceptics who because they are somewhat isolated, are concerned with what the dogmatists overlook and to this extent, are 274

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a particular kind of philosopher. It should be noted that in the creativity that they practise, the sceptics are not exempt from forming concepts, even though their rules for doing this are distinct from those of the dogmatists. The concept of the sceptics arises from descriptive activity and is so unintentional both with regard to its shape and concern with the suspension of judgement, that they seem to be unwilling to be described in this way. The attempts of sceptics to draw closer to dogmatists have not always been welcomed. Admittedly, the dogmatists pay some attention to these questions in response to the efforts made by sceptics to form an alliance in descriptive terms and these seductive advances are well received, but when it is realized that this flirtation also takes place in an environment where dogmatism is being rejected, the mood becomes a little more hostile. The reaction is to dismiss scepticism under the charge that, in its seduction, it is nothing more than a form of dogmatism or even that scepticism induces immorality through its supposed inertia and semantic descriptability. In the current climate, it is also accused of aestheticism. Hence discussions arise about whether or not it is possible for the sceptic to experience his scepticism. These are ways in which the seduction exercised by the sceptic can be rejected. Scepticism praises everyday life although this kind of eulogy is not well understood. This positive outlook occurs when a comparison is made between everyday life and philosophical reflection. Dogmatism often regards common sense as being erroneous and philosophical reflection as a means of allowing us to escape from this blind alley. As is well known, the myth of the cave is emblematic of this conception in the way that the subject who is accustomed to shadows, sees the real world and after returning to give an account of it, ends up dead. This illustrates how common sense is intransigent in its attitude to enlightenment, when there is a need to escape from it. When compared with philosophy, scepticism suspends judgement over the question of the superiority or inferiority of common sense and for this reason, offers features of perception that can allow the practice to be adjusted to other subjectareas. What is more, the degree of suffering felt by the dogmatist can be alleviated if he experiences life more fully. Common sense in turn is not an ideal state but only serves as an antidote for some of the ills of dogmatism like delirium and melancholy, although it shares some of its vices too. Some of the squabbles between dogmatism and common sense are owing to the pettiness of being self-centred. Dogma can be found in both and since everyday life cannot be recommended as a panacea for the sufferings of dogmatism, there are forms that resemble dogma (among those submerged in common sense) that are pernicious. This is a way of saying that the superiority of common sense lies in the fact that it has something to offer dogmatism and never the other way round. In this way, the sceptic experiences everyday life but does not live it like an ordinary person. He

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makes use of it as a means of correcting the dogmatism to which he is exposed. If other forms arise that resemble dogma, he suspends judgement of them too. The sceptic generally abides by the laws of the city and adapts himself to the customs of the place where he lives. This is because in most situations, each of the rules has equal weight together with an underlying sense which makes it appropriate to obey them. This is unlike the situation of ordinary people who comply with the rules because they think it is right, whereas the sceptic does so because he wants to imitate what others are doing. This form of compliance leads to unexpected situations because laws which might be more intricate or lack any obvious sense, will not be obeyed simply because they have been overlooked. Even in the case of rules that are easier to understand, there is an endless network of interrelationships which bring about more sophisticated practices that are involved in their being obeyed. These are only accessible to those who wholeheartedly adhere to them and have a special kind of feeling for them. This is something that the sceptic is not capable of doing. It can be said that practising scepticism ends up by inducing a salutary kind of blindness. Thus, the way the sceptic does not abide by the rules is to refuse to confront them and this is almost always accompanied by a destructive force against them, - that is, if it is not an act of homage. Nonetheless for most of the time, ordinary people obey the rules because they deem it as better to obey than disobey and generally the sceptic too, decides whether or not to obey in the same way. This blurred distinction makes it preferable to avoid the melancholy state of finding that simply because one knows what rules have been established, one decides to obey them. On the other hand, as mentioned earlier, the sceptic is not someone who views things in an ordinary way. Since he is unable to see the point of most of the rules that he conforms to, he becomes very absent-minded since he is only able to comply with them in his own peculiar way. Pyrrhus willingly carried out tasks regarded as being suited to females, not because he was unaware that they were abnormal but because he enjoyed doing them and his indifference gave him a feeling of exhiliration. The detached way the sceptic obeys rules bears witness to the absurdity of rules that are ill-conceived, at the same time that it provides the means of protecting the public domain from what may simply be ad hoc requirements. He does not know things or even the course they must take and this makes him mimic the rules like someone in a pantomime. It is an appropriate way of finding what is the most effective kind of resistance since he believes this way of behaving will not trigger a reaction. A Pyrrhonist (using the word a s a synonym for sceptic) does not expect his conduct to benefit society but from a detached standpoint, believes that this is the best virtue to have virtuous effects. “A Pyrrhonist cannot expect his philosophy to have a lasting influence on his mind: or if it does, that this influence will be of benefit

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to society” (Burnyeat, 1998, p. 25). It is what can be noted from the fact that the sceptic is neither an eager participant nor someone who can be disconcerted. This characteristic does not stem from a search for the right degree of participation but a detached involvement arising from an indifference to the question of rules. The Pyrrhonist abides by the laws of the city like everyone else; at least, since he tends to be isolated, as well as having his head full of matters concerning scepticism, he is not so prone as everybody else to obeying the rules. This is because it is one thing to find out about rules and how peoiple feel about them, but quite another to obey them. For this reason, the sceptic is able to obey rules in a manner that is not servile since they are not linked to any form of subjugation. It can be argued that imitation is only a very peripheral part of the practice of obeying rules. The most significant aspect is being involved in an array of feelings caused by subjugation. This feeling leads to all kinds of deviations in the same way as when people become accomplices of arbitrary rule. By being released from feelings of subjugation, the sceptic is able to follow this by showing up the absurdities of this arbitrariness. The Pyrrhonist obeys without any desire for power. Wanting things to be better invariably only masks a desire that they will be better in a way that suits somebody’s will to power. Thus the seduction exercised by the sceptic is distinct since, speaking from an objective standpoint, it is improved with practice even though it is not believed in, or in other words there is no will to power. A city only comprising sceptics is a dogmatic postulate which seems to us to be a case of suspending judgement. Common sense, dogmatism and scepticism draw together and separate for different reasons. At any rate, there seems to be a common point of departure for all three which causes particular problems to the sceptics. We assent to most propositions without being aware that we are doing so. In the light of this, the dogmatist in attempting to clarify matters, selects the best and rejects the worst. The dogmatic undertaking will be drawn on to assist common sense to escape from the state of blindness which characterizes it. Thus if someone with common sense can adhere to a dogmatic judgement without being aware of it, he will be suspected, so long as he does not abandon the position he occupies. Despite appearances, the aim of dogmatism is to supplant any residual need for common sense as well as responding to the objections of the sceptics. Each dogmatist forms his idea of a sceptic according to his wishes, but there is a degree of constancy. He either believes that the seceptic knows his scepticism is impossible when it is involved in a practice that is wholly seductive, and hence malicious, or else he is a fool who is unable to realize that it is impossible. If he persists in this way, the dogmatist will have to condemn the sceptic at the time when there is a question of his not being a sceptic. In the meantime, he expects the sceptic to commit strange acts such as being shot against a wall, jumping off a cliff, drinking poison, touching a red-hot glass with his hands etc.

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It is clear the desire to set a trap for the sceptic is caused by a misconception of scepticism. It is like telling a shoemaker that it is impossible to be a shoemaker since he makes shoes badly. A shoemaker does not become a shoemaker because he makes perfect shoes but to find out how to do it. And the same applies to scepticism – his shoe is the suspension of judgement and description. At the outset, the sceptic is a person like anyone else and the only difference is that he leartns how to do something that not everybody knows how to do. He practises his scepticism by creating for himself a life without beliefs. A perfect life without beliefs is a contradiction in terms. Life without beliefs is not an ideal but rather a generic term that for something that the sceptic knows how to do. One can dislike the way a shoemaker works but admire the results, or conversely not like either but still like shoes. Very well, imagine someone cannot bear the suspension of judgement – perhaps this person has never been involved with making shoes. Even someone who knows how to make shoes may want to borrow the skills of another person. At all events, it is necssary for a sceptic who comes under scrutiny, to know how to pursue his own ends. If the suspension of judgement is like making shoes, it is definitely only something that is tailor-made given the impossibility of determining what is the standard size. The suspension of judgement is either tailor-made or not. A part of the effectiveness of the seduction wielded by the dogmatist can be attrributed to this appearance of being the possessor of the concept. To this extent, the concept is to thought what truth is supposed to be to nature – a means of access to things themselves. Furthermore, the concept is the mode of thinking itself which can shelter and understand truth. It is much more stable than description. Hence, the sceptic may, or may not, have a concept. This perception of scepticism may seem mistaken because the sceptic recognizes the specific features of the concept but just refuses to admit that there is anything like it. The concept is a wonderful imaginative operation, the problematic element being that there are dogmatic claims to it. Thus once released from this kind of requirement, it proves to be the most sophisticated way of controlling the image which, for example, can be found in a voluntary sanctioning of beliefs and in the modes of creating new worlds. Sceptical seduction is carried out from an understanding that the concept is an image like any other and that its means of remaining permanent assumes the form of a belief (as in any kind of image). In the case of a dogmatist, there is no difference between having or making a concept. This is because having a concept causes a considerable upheaval. If he were able to have a concept, the sceptic would definitely have a suspension of judgement. At any rate, he himself is the cause of the upheaval he experiences. Thus, one should be aware that as well as being tailor-made, suspension has a useful life. After being used for a certain time, it wears out and must be thrown away and replaced by something new. It might be that the new suspension does not look like the former one but life still goes on the same. 278

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Images as beliefs can be understood in three domains: 1. In their impregnation, they are acquired in an unconscious way. They might be natural such as the breathing of air and falling of objects or affective, both in basic situations like the expectation of protection and milk for a baby and decoding the elaborate features of facial expressions, tones of voice etc. The beliefs thus acquired are those that allow us to be in the world and simply this. They do not appear as a judgement. Even practices can be learnt for impregnation like one’s mother tongue, without any need for assent (Barnes, 1998, 84). 2. Assent is much broader than judgement and takes place in experiences that are in front of us. These can appear to result from a report, for example. Sceptics assent to everything that appears even if this involves being deceived; the fact is that appearances change the shapes that appear at the time when assent ceases to be necessary, by virtue of impregnation, and begins to appear in the first domain (Burnyeat, 1998, p. 40). According to Burnyeat, if the sceptic assents, it is because a thing presses on him, pushes him and compels him to react (Burnyeat, 1998, p. 42). He is driven by appearances but also drives them, as in hunger, sexual desire etc. Assent does not expect impregnation to be recognized. 3. However, this kind of assent should not be confused with assent to a judgement because the spontaneity in it is interrupted by an assertion of the being of a particular state or value. The languages that distinguish between permanent and temporary states of being raise notions that make it possible to understand the specific features of the kind of assent that is avoided by the sceptic. He admits that honey is sweet for the time being but not that it is sweet all the time. In saying that the sceptic lives (by employing a suspension of judgement) a life without belief, one is only referring to the assent to a judgement and not to assent, pure and simple. The seduction exercised by the sceptic does not entail providing a conscious means of dealing with emotions. These, as we know, are a source of joy and dismay. The feasibility of scepticism does not involve living without suffering but going through life without suffering unduly. Scepticism begins at the time that the subject becomes aware that his suffering is not entirely caused by a painful event but to a great extent concerns a growing upheaval. Emotions are interwoven with beliefs. It is not possible to escape from emotions that derive from impregnation or assent. Apart from the fact that it is undesirable to do this, they allow us to form social bonds. At all event, assent to a judgement does not affect this bond. The dog is both dangerous and not dangerous. Assuming that the dog is dangerous is only a feeling of being more afraid. Another more poetic example would be the striking difference 279

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between being hungry and being in a state of hunger. The state of hunger cannot be satisfied, whereas being hungry can lead to a feeling of peacefulness (Burnyeat, 1998, 45-46). The sceptic lives without any specific kind of upheaval. It still remains true that it is mistaken to refer to Hume when addressing the question of whether it is impossible for the sceptic to live his scepticism. He judges that the sceptic supports the view that judgement can be suspended to three kinds of assent. This is not a cohesive image of scepticism as can be seen. Nor should we refer to the anecdotes about the life of Pyrrhus. Hume, in turn, does not suspend judgement at times when it is important to do so but this can be attributed to aa understandable incapacity. At any rate, he suspends it whenever he can. There are more similarities between Pyrrhus and Hume than is generally realized.

SECTION IV [...] I ran into the arms of my Montaigne – the truth is simply this. I always thought Montaigne had an extensive family but I never loved the members of the family so much as its head – my Montaigne. (Bernhard, 2011, p. 237) Accidents assist sceptical seduction to acquire anextraordinary appeal, particularly that which concerns the suspension of judgement. This jagged stone of skepticism is portrayed as doubt in the Academy of Cicero. It is a really seductive fact that suspension begins when its power is treated as doubt on the basis of an interpretative choice. The epoché (or suspension) is carried out in dubitare. At first sightthere is nothing wrong about doubt. Or rather, scepticism is so bound up with it that it is recognized as a philosophy of doubt and not a suspension of judgement. It is an attribute of the descriptive tradition of scepticism that it is able to embody anything that allows it to discern things more clearly. Accepting doubt entails learning how to deal with a series of mistakes and make use of them. But doubt is troubling. Whoever experiences doubt undergoes an experience of pain as well as truth. Furthermore, without the suspension of judgement, it is impossible to avoid aggravating the pain even more. We are induced to become the pain and not simply be dogged by it. How then can scepticism accept doubt as a part of seduction without being destroyed by it? Some of its effects must be seen as involving the need to run this risk. There are factors that are similar between doubt and the suspension of judgement. When broken down, they have features in common. The peacefulness inherent in the suspension of judgement makes the sceptic pay close attention to images. Thus he may carry out a mental operation even though he is not describing it aloudor putting it down in writing. The pictorial display of experiences was manifested by the disciples of the painter Pyrrhus. The question of doubt also attracted a good 280

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deal of attention although this was combined with the anxiety caused by curiosity. The scientific spirit strives to make us believe that an act of pure description can only be undertaken through curiosity and not through any inclination for it when the central features of doubt lie in the modern world. The sceptic does not want to disclose the secrets of nature and it is not for this reason that he makes a description but rather because he derives pleasure from widening his tastes. Doubts cling to images in the hope that some use can be made of them. But it is important not just to discover a use butto proceed to an accumulation. Both doubt and the suspension of judgement lead to self-judgement and trigger echoes of the inner world. A conversational exchange occurs between doubt and suspension. The doubt tends to the hypostasis of the ego but this does not mean there areno mechanisms to allow us escape from it. Doubt should not be expressed in a trivial way or else it may be deprived of this feeling. It can be said that this is the last chance to escape from doubt. As a result, doubt and suspension can be found in both areas because they have been expressed and they need to find formal strategies to root out the contradictions of utterance. This suggests that the purpose of this apparent sophistication of utterance is to allow a revival of meaning that goes beyond implacable feelings. Without this stratagem, doubt and suspension will only be a pretext for dogma. Owing to the writings of Cicero, doubt was a very significant strand of Christian thought. It became a key strategy in unlocking the anguish of those seeking to have faith in an alternative belief. In a similar way to doubt, faith was the refuge provided to those who had undergone religious affliction. From the standpoint of the person who suffered, the subject remained a sceptic until he reached the point of being converted to Christianity. The experience was full of failings both among those who began to doubt their practices and also among those who spoke against them. There were discussions that affected their lives which, as a result, began to be shrouded in melancholy – if God is an alternative, is it imperative to doubt his existence too? The grief was so great and any possibility of sticking to a rational belief seemed to be fading away, whereas God shone forth and a sense of peace could be obtained by having faith in him. This was at least true when this situation was compared with what had been believed previously (except at the times when one sought to see the face of God). It is possible to doubt everything but after passionate devotion, doubting the existence of God led to one being subjected to such acute anguish that there was an eagerness to exchange doubt for a judicious assent – God exists. This attitude was adopted by St Augustine and St Anselm and then passed on to Descartes, Pascal, Rousseau etc. Even if Christianity left the stage, the sceptic did not and the pattern remained the same. It must be agreed that the religious use of doubt tends to placate the kind of seduction offered by scepticism, particularly by giving the impression that it can alleviate suffering. In turn, the 281

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Pyrrhonist noted that faith only offers tranquillity in so far as it can avoid the risk of proving to be false--not to mention the problem of ensuring the compatibility of several kinds of faith that have equal claims to truth and the question of whether some of these claims should be rejected. This means that the person with faith is apparently at ease so long as he remains in a condition of ignorance. The fact that some paths followed by doubt are negative in their outcomes, does not mean that they should be abandoned entirely or that certain features that cannot be explored, might lead to a virtuous seduction. It seems to us that doubt is an effective form of disguise for the sceptic. Doubt possesses several meanings which naturally include the objective and subjective senses of the word. The term covers the scientific spirit as anarea of curiosity and allows doubt to be expressed in aninvestigation which is continuous and cannot be interrupted. The latter concerns the internal effects of doubt and the inner sensation of pain felt by someone who experiences a divisive state. While in the objective position, doubt entails making discoveries and being driven in every direction by curiosity; in the subjective state, it refers to the incapacity to decide which path to follow. Subjective doubt can be linked to equipollence and the impossibility of making decisions because of blurred distinctions. However, there is an important difference which is that when compared with the suspension of judgement, this incapacity lies in its lack of ability and not in appearances themselves. In this case, doubt is very destructive because of the aggravating adverse effects that are derived from the inability to make decisions – which is a kind of inclination. On the other hand, subjective doubt is closely bound up with the feeling of certainty that there really is such a thing as grief. From a quick appraisal, it seems that scepticiam is linked to objective and not to subjective doubt. Stating this implies that scepticism can only be understood as a philosophical anticipation of the scientific spirit. Despite several affinities, this does not seem to be true because dogmatism is a powerful factor in science. Scepticism is equidistant from the discourses and always adopts a stance of being something else. In addition, in the case of doubt, it is not very clear what separates objective from subjective factors. The extent to which they overlap can be felt because it is often stated that objectivity is not reliable – or at least not entirely so – and also because the expectation that objectivity can resolve the enigmas of subjectivity, has been disappointed. In both paths, there is a need to stimulate subjective pain so that it can be overcome. In rejecting objectivity, the subject overcomes grief by asserting that nothing can be known through the senses, in so far as there is a need to go within oneself to find what one is seeking. This allows the subject to be attached to the transcendence that supposedly lies buried within his inner depths. The grief lingers on and cannot be overcome either within or outside, but only at the transcendent moment when it arises from within (and when this is not opposed by anything). At the same time, if the value 282

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of objectivity is recognized, this implies that the subjectivity has been resolved – if not through transcendence, at least through discovering a way of overcoming the experience in a trustworthy way. All this is designed to show how doubt involves both the subject and object: 1. Both when there are doubts about the subject (and the object is obtained) and when there are doubts about the object and the subject is obtained; 2. When leaving the object, the subject attains transcendence or else the subject is convinced of its pure objectivity (as in the crudest kinds of positivism). The seduction exercised by doubt has a sui generis history that is to some extent alien to scepticism. For example, all the subjective suffering caused by doubt is attractive but for other reasons than scepticism since, in the last analysis, it is a pain that the subject craves to feel so that he can surrender himself to transcendence or positivism, without any feeling of guilt. As well as this, it is a pain that will never go away and is always keeping to the same track. Thus it is a question of seducing by pain and nothing is less sceptical than this. However, doubt like pain also leads to different results because it seems to be obsessed with repeating its distrust of the subject or object. It is at this time that doubt seems to lead to sceptical seduction. The gesture of doubt seems to be feigned and mistaken for pain. If this takes place, doubt ceases to be of interest as a psychological dimension or a means of forming a basis of positivitybut rather as a kind of conceptual stimulus. If this is the case, what all those who suffer and are distrustful end up by showing (through their different modes of seduction) is that doubt can exist without pain. In this way, those who manipulate doubts on the basis of pain, will only be enlarging the spectre of doubt despite the pain. This is a much more mechanical task than its emotional implications might suggest. Regarded as a concept, doubt is a form of sceptical seduction. Is Descartes responsible for this? – only accidentally. The fact that he employs doubt in a non-sceptical way opens up an unforeseen opportunity for it to be regarded as a kind of creative seduction that is not grounded on pain. Any attempt to reconstruct Descartes’ argument in his Meditations will involve showing an exaggerated doubt. Moreover, even the insistence on its instrumental form, makes one feel that it is almost impossible not to crave for something that will put a stop to the pain. Doubt causes anguish and its exposure to the way it inflicts suffering is able to bring about this craving. In this case, the doubt about whether it is possible to know something that can allow this question to be raised in a serious way, involves attempting to ensure that it is secure, as well as clear and distinct. A third way of doubting also seems to arise from our impression that the gesture of Descartes can be repeated without the pain. Furthermore, distrust is even provoked among the philosophers who depend to a great extent on the suffering that doubt 283

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causes them. We believe that doubt can be corrected even in these cases. Scepticism mimics doubt and this gives it a simulated character that leads to a concept that is beyond desrciption. The sceptic feels this concept not as a pain but as something that enables him to observe the suffering of the doubtful activity and the effects that doubt can have on producing new methods for interpreting the world. We are reminded of another dimension that is imbued with a belief which cannot be experienced without the set of practices and values which we are exposed to when we have no means of resisting them. This may have resulted from the fact that we have been immersed in them since our birth but it need not only be this. This is because when our critical defences help us to avoid the things we dislike, this dimension keeps surprising us. We traverse these practices and values without knowing them because this is what forms our everyday lives. On the whole, beliefs are proved to be correct although some are just curiosities and many are mistaken. This last point is the cause of prejudices. It is common for these to bring about suffering to those who feel them and even more acutely to those who are their victims. By opposing belief, a doubt only heaps up suffering with disastrous results. At least the sceptic can oppose a simulated doubt which is the effect of a conceptual practice and like an object that reproduces the pains that are necessary to placate the consequences of their impregnation. It is a question of setting in motion new kinds of feeling though conscious action with the aim of bringing about practices and values which can avoid immorality. Moreover, it is as if the simulated doubt begins to have a radiant or magical effect in such a way that, what is instilled into us, begins to be tarnished by our negative feelings. Perhaps it is not too much to expect that this stratagem should lead to a mitigation of moral failings. The duality of belief and doubt can be regarded in a different way and is seductive because of its malleability. It can be said that the sceptic accepts the world with all its rough edges and offers strategies to ensure the progress of its pictorial representation. Even though it departs from the line of argument adopted by Cicero, by turning to religion and ending up in a poor condition, its dynamics consist of doubting and suffering. This provides it with the means means of deciding whether or not to believe in the propagation of suffering throughout the world. This is a kind of belief in pain that is established by scepticism and involves enacting a state of doubt which can purify belief and make it more consistent. In this way, it draws closer to what is described and it becomes a reference-point. Belief is a stabilizing factor where images are enshrined in the world, while doubt is a means of ensuring that the process is conducted with a certain degree of rigor. From this standpoint, doubt is what prevents the image from becoming crystallized if it takes the shape of a dogma. As Barnes reminds us, the word dogma first appeared in official Athenian documents in the 5th Century B.C. and basically referred to the political aspects of a decree or resolution i.e. something that could not be altered. In the Laws in the 284

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Republic, Plato employs the term in the same sense. Barnes also refers to the time in the Theaetetus when Socrates said that his problem was how to shed light on what was meant by the word the ‘dogma’. For this reason, he suggested replacing the Greek word ‘dogma’ with ‘belief’. This had a politico-judicial effect on what is involved in decision-making and opposed any new social advances. The fact that belief embedded us in a religious context was why it involved social practices that increasingly led to its politico-judicial tenets becoming preserved. The association with doubt was a means of resolving any possible conflicts. When faced with the anguish of doubt, this was an alternative kind of belief that did not involve any problem of suffering because it was destined to the notion of believing. Religious seduction provided a means of putting an end to suffering owing to the fact that the doctrine was accepted. Moreover, it involved a conscious choice of accepting that man did not have the ability to see what is invisible, infinite, impossible etc. However, in practice scepticism was something else and from its standpoint dogma was just a more particular kind of belief which was often attached to another doctrine and for this reason, its strength was bound up with its ability to defy description. A dogmatic idea was something that ceased to question its own principles on the basis of its significance. In the view of the sceptic, belief was a means of establishing meaning and providing us with a secure world. If we have doubts about them, it is because we seek to broaden our spectral horizons and find a means of achieving stability. The whole of meaning is centred on belief but if this is not the case, we should then turn to doubt.

SECTION V [...] but I would never have thought that in the depths of gloom I would have clung to my Montaigne. (Bernhard, 2011, p. 237) Therapy as exercised by scepticism forms a key pillar of seduction. At the same time it might be the area which harbors the greatest difficulties. The sceptic would like to be regarded as a philanthropist and display this quality through a willingness to help the dogmatists to be cured of their ailments. The ailments of the dogmatists consist of their dogmas themselves. The main reason that a dogma can become tolerable is that there are so many dogmas that it would be unwise to judge that something is of a particular nature when there are people around who might disagree. The sceptic is someone who is willing to deal with people and a soul without dogmas would even allow a a body that is sick to have a better life. The dogmatists suffer from a disease caused by words and this means that it can only be cured by a therapy that sets out from this fact. Socrates was the first therapist of this kind. What this implies is that the willingness to help displayed by sceptics 285

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is not always welcome. The first question that arises concerns philanthropy. Why is the sceptic a philanthropist? In what way is philanthropy different from a dogma? Why is someone willing to carry out this kind of activity if this causes so much turmoil? Clearly philanthropy releases the sceptic from a traditional understanding that he should only obey the rules of the city. The reason for this is that even if his actions do not break any rules, they might disturb the even tenor of everyday routines. This is because the city itself also requires a ritualistic repetition of dogmas by the people. At the same time that he shows obedience, the sceptic carries out practices that allow the city to be maintained as it is. A city with sceptics is regarded as force for change sui generis, since they deal with dogmas and it follows that the best way to preserve a city is to expel the sceptics. It is thus in the best interests of the sceptics not to have dealings with anybody but only to be obedient. How can this incongruous situation be explained? The most common explanation is that the sceptic is unable to achieve tranquillity (ataraxia) while there is a dogmatist in his surroundings. In other words, since the sceptic is concerned about suffering, he will seek to put at end to it wherever he encounters it (Annas, 1983, 245). When regarded in this way, it seems to us that philanthropy opens up two avenues of interpretation: 1. The sceptic is so sensitive that he is unable to be happy so long as some dogmatist might be suffering, and 2. A lack of suffering is a conditional requirement for a sceptic to be happy. Neither of the two seem to us to be incorrect because there might be some sceptics who are more sensitive than others, or some who are more kind-hearted and so on, and these differences do not seem to affect scepticism. The most plausible explanation is that, (at least in a general way), the sceptic takes action regardless of who he is. In the second interpretation, the philanthropist appears to accept a vicious circle. The sceptic is uncharacteristically eager to succeed by being useful. If he is annoyed about a dripping tap, he will take desperate measures to repair all those he finds that are leaking. The problem of this interpretation is that it is a special case. As with the rest of the world, there are some sceptics who are more tolerant and others who are less so; but if they fulfil what they set out to do and are sensitive enough to take action, at first sight, this does not seem to matter. In that case why is the sceptic a philanthropist and why is this not a feature of dogmatists? In a simile used earlier, the sceptic is like a shoemaker. There are some sceptics who are better than others. No special talent is needed to be a sceptic in so far as it can be learnt although like any other activity, some people turn out to be better than others. Hence, scepticism does not have to see well what the sceptic feels.

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How is this the case? Is it ataraxia? Nobody is a shoemaker before he has made his first pair of shoes, even if they are no good. A person becomes a sceptic when he is able to suspend judgement and sheltered under his own shadow. Thus, his feelings accompany him while he is carrying out his own activities. The sceptic gives help because this is his normal activity. He is a philanthropist like a shoemaker and is concerned about treating people well because this is what he does. In this way, when something disturbing occurs it does not upset the suspension of judgement; to start with, he is indifferent and after suspending judgement, the existence of an upheaval provides a reason to explain why the sceptic knows what to do. The sceptic is a philanthropist because philanthropy is an intrisnsic part of his activity. On the other hand, the reasons that encourage someone to be a sceptic seem to be nebulous, unless they can be simplified in sociological terms. Even if the sceptic is treated like a traditional dogmatist and wants to do something good to those who are in a familiar situation, he is only in a condition to help at the time when philanthropy forms an intrinsic part of his activity and not as a result of an emotional feeling that it would be good to help somebody. While being a sceptic, he caanot cease to be philanthropic, even if, ironically, this is what he wants. Thus the fact that his activity can achieve positive results, despite any particular feeling, is a powerful form of seduction exercised by scepticism. The sceptic does not need to be good to do good. On the other hand, there is a predominant viewpoint, (which is addressed by Sextus Empiricus) that the sceptic is only concerned with dogmatists, since they are the only ones who can endure dogma, and this is what partly explains their praise of everyday life. Dogmatism is opposed to everyday life and it can be claimed that this involves the repetition of an idée fixe. Everyday life is fleeting and unpredictable but has a certain system and provides a terrain for solving difficult questions; moreover, it is able to open up new avenues without any serious feeling of resentment. What the dogmatic philosopher finds difficult - on account of his grave demeanour and his need to defend certainty - everyday life finds easy by simply displaying a degree of levity. However, even with regard to the question origins, scepticism can think that things are not really like that. The same manoeuvre carried out by the philosopher is found in everyday life, though perhaps in a less sophisticated way. The same suffering experienced in philosophy, as well as its possible causes, can be found in everyday life – it does not matter where it comes from, it is still suffering. It is owing to the fact that the difference between philosophy and non-philosophy does not take an obvious form. For this reason, it seems more reasonable to state that one of the occupations of the sceptic is to deal with the kind of suffering that is venial to the dogmatist and is caused by rebutting an idée fixe that, to some people, might be a debilitating state. Thus everyday life can also be appropriated by the idée fixe in a way that is similar to what takes place with dogmatism. Although the effect that 287

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everyday life has on the dissipation of dogmas is appealing to the sceptic, it is clear that this also causes vulnerablility. The sceptic is able to treat someone in this way since the suffering endured by dogmatism prevents even people in everyday life from enjoying themselves. Scepticism is not the only kind of therapy but emerges as the most attractive. Once we are conscious of the fact that the sceptic is a kind of philanthropist, we are drawn back to the question: - but what does he do? As has been suggested, the sceptic treats others in the same way as himself. However, some dissociation between the spheres is possible because it is plausible for someone to cease to make shoes even though he may still remember his former practice (or this may suggest one thing or another). In this case, this person is no longer a sceptic despite being able to give help as if he were one. As has been seen, it cannot be deemed that once a sceptic, always a sceptic, or that one put forward the hypothesis that there might be suich a thing as a retired sceptic. Someone is a sceptic in so far as he exercises a kind of scepticism in which the sceptic is embodied. Caring for oneself is similar to living life and this is what the sceptic does when he is not a dogmatist – or what would make it impossible to imagine a world without dogmatists. This means that carrying out everyday tasks/activities like waking up and going to sleep, suffering or experiencing pleasure, even the suspension of judgement as an instrument, become immoderate if there is nobody to say what the things are. The sceptic describes in pictorial terms how things display variegated features with the single proviso that when they are steeped in images with their respective colors, they must adopt a neutral state of passivity. The accompanying variability acquires a first person perspective without allowing it lead to an underlying hypostasis, as, to the extent that it gives an account of change, describing the position of the subject is also a way of proliferating it. If it is imprisoned in itself, it sickens from a terrible dogmatism – and falls into a kind of trance. In caring for somebody else, it describes the repetitive thoughts that establish being, in terms that make it yield the pictorial composition it represents. A procedure of this kind is able to dissolve dogma into the shifting domain of experience. Surely, if it involves suffering, a dogma can defy description because one has the sensation that this might increase the pain, as when one treats an infected wound. For this reason, the approximation strategy must be sophisticated. Before displaying the pictorial features of the idée fixe, the sceptic must adhere to this concept in his own terms, in the density produced by the accumulation of descriptive detail. The purpose of this is to encompass the pain by drawing on the evidence that is represented by an image like the others. Although it may not alleviate the pain like the other strtategies, it can make it relative to the special conditions that are assumed to prevail among all who suffer. put the supposed special features into perspective for all who suffer. It is in this way that the sceptic is able to provide therapy to the dogmatist by caring for someone else. 288

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What is this therapy like? Before anything else, it has no contractual ties nor offers any kind of remuneration because this would prevent any involvement of philanthropy, as mentioned earlier. This means that in the realm of caring for someone else, the sceptic practises a therapy of a peculiar kind. This is because there is no moral duty to help (of the kind that there would be if someone requested treatment and was told that this could be provided), in the event of their requirements being complied with and there was found to be a willingness to help oneself. Clearly it can be said that the whole secret of therapy lies in the willingness to help oneself. However, the point being made here is that the sceptic agrees to help as kind of duty, but of a kind that is is not a morally binding contractual responsibility. For this reason, sceptical therapy offers a treatment that is widespread by being offered to everybody so that nobody will suffer. The essential part of what the sceptic has to teach is that nobody teaches anything to anybody. The sceptic is a therapist without patients. Thus scepticism does not have to prevaricate before the issue of cure but in fact is well equipped to confront and understand it in a truly literal sense, as a means of bringing dogma to a state of maturity. Before it can be cured, dogma must be geared towards its mature forms, (and accompanied by its consolidated image) because in its attainment, it is dissipated. In the old form of scepticism, the cure was provided by the opposition of discourses in a way that allowed a suspension of judgement. In modern scepticism, the remedy must be seen as a cure of the system and be affected by the evidence that the systems are indifferent when they lead to maturity. Thus it should be noted that both knowledge in itself and of the other, converge in the therapeutic skills of the sceptic. It can be said that it is description that gives the sceptic his healing powers. Although he carries out the act of describing in any kind of way, making the description public entails allowing the effects of the cure to devolve on those who need it. The sceptic does not speak alone but is unable to know much about the person he is addressing, and even when he speaks to his disciples, there is a certain impersonality in the descriptions that accumulate. Hence it can be said that the sceptic seeks to heal the image and treat it so that its inherent obscurity can be dissipated. It is not necessary for the cure of people to be protracted as long as that of the image. Just as an image is treated, those involved in it are cured of their own forms of dogmatism. The image is where the dogmatic suffering is hidden and for this reason it creates a complex world like a system in circles that are concealed within circles, because in this way, parts of the image can be revealed, even though its absolute completeness is preserved. It is not that the dogmatist likes to suffer but rather that by fleeing from pain and neglecting the image, he makes it increasingly remote. The seduction of the sceptic is exercised to make the dogmatist exchange his non-perceptionof the image (in his composition)

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for another that is much more than just one image among others. The sceptic seeks to seduce the dogmatist to enable him to be cured. The delight felt by doctors of antiquity is understandable and was of such an extent that many who practised in an empirical way using medicines based on physical evidence, decided to combine their skills with scepticism. It was the account by Sextus Empiricus (a doctor whose ideas have been preserved as the main source of scepticism, on a ccount of his way of thinking) that led to there being a kind of enclosed space. Hence scepticism was able to understand how to go beyond the achievements of medicine and improve the system (though not without consequences). In some versions, scepticism became hypochondriac and in others simply had a phobia with regard to philosophy. The supposed moral duty of scepticism with regard to medicine sanctioned the notion that philosophjy could be viewed as pathology. The sceptic was not only a doctor but in specific terms a specialist; thus he was given the task of removing an organ or diseased tissue as a means of saving the body. The interest of the sceptic in dogmatism became cold. The fascination with ideas became exchanged for a war against disease. It seems that the association of scepticism with medicine has been entirely misguided. For this reason, we give priority to the feature that anatomists and painters have in common which is the pictorial. The image fascinates the sceptic. The initial approximation between sceptics and dogmatists takes place because the sceptic is a master of the image. The interest of the sceptic is genuine and not simply a curiosity about a disease. The appeal of the dogmatist to the sceptic has nothing to do with seeing something as a disease but rather with the creativity that it practises. It is only after the sceptic perceives that the dogmatist is suffering that he is rightly affected by his wonderful capacity, even though it takes an exaggerated form and goes beyond the bounds of plausibility. The sceptic is fascinated by the dogmatist because, as we have said, he is unconsciously a master of the image. The sceptic loves images and hence describes, treats and heals them. He takes care of all the fragments that the dogmatist scatters around the world. Although compared with those of doctors, the therapeutic skills of the sceptic have little to support the analogy since the best they can do is to describe the image of someone who knows how to produce it. At times, the dogmatists suffer from the creation of these objects that shine. The activity of the sceptic consists of showing that pain derives from the fact of believing that the image is true. The sceptic shows that on the basis of images, the truth of images is in most cases be made equivalent to them. It is the minimum one could do by having such lovely images from the hands of the dogmatist. The sceptic handles them like an artist and improves them surreptitiously, just as he is able to heal more effectively when the supposed patient does not know that he is being cured. For this reason, there would be no sense in postulating a difference between the normal and the pathological or adopting it as a criterion for evaluating the images. The sceptic 290

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is not like a doctor; he is like a painter. What he does in his treatment, he would do without any suffering in his other activities. Pain establishes a list of priorities. A sceptic who by chance, finds himself isolated, establishes closer contact through a certain ontological description, as well as by paying more attention to the seasons of himself and his nature, and he can hardly be distinguished from the landscape which he inhabits. By carrying out a description of the environment, the sceptic is camouflaged in it. Surrounded by people, the sceptic is involved with everyday life and its many strata, where he attends to people and their suffering. Another way of regarding the problem of therapy as altruism, would be to accept it as something futile – which is to say that in truth the sceptic seduces as a way of asserting that nobody can do anything for anybody, apart from speaking about his own suffering. This understanding sets out from a view of scepticism as a medical practice in which some intellectual practices are both the symptom and the disease. But oddly if intellectual practices are regarded in this way, it might be thought that there is nothing that can be done for the sick. The most common way of acquiring this feeling of indifference is by adopting a concept of hypostasis which entails the notion of meaningful discourses. When conducted, there is a tendency for those who do not know of any way out the problem, and are unable to strike up an immediate feeling of familiarity, lack any meaning and must struggle to win attention. The practice is of a kind that is made difficult and annoying since it means that before one can be ill, one must first give proof of one’s health. This way of understanding therapy is absurd since it is not up to the sceptic to affirm suffering but for the patient to say that he feels it. Thus the sceptic expects that all discourses will have meaning when rooted in the situation in which they belong and concludes that there can only be a lack of meaning in exceptional circumstances. It is more reasonable to suppose that a discourse of suffering always includes meaning in so far as a significant part of meaning lies in the willingness of someone to listen to it. It is only in this way that scepticism can be understood as therapy since it is disposed to welcome a discourse in which the meaning is grounded in suffering. In addition, a discourse must have some meaning in the first place before it can be false and this is the point that scepticism insists on: it is unable to apprehend the meaning of the concepts and propositions of the dogmatists or, what is the same thing, the dogamtists are unable to give meaning to their discourse. And what cannot be understood, cannot be accepted. (Smith, 2007, p. 51) If “it is unable to apprehend the meaning of the concepts and propositions of the dogmatists” (Smith, 2007, p. 51), it can be inferred that it is owing to this, that annoying factors can obstruct therapeutic activities. If therapy is essential to scepticism, this unwillingness to search for meaning prevents the idea of being 291

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sceptical from being opposed. When faced with what he is unable to understand, the sceptic regards the lack of meaning as a failing on his part and seeks to shake it off so that he can help the person who is suffering. The suspension of judgement is really compatible with reason but no help will be suggested from some distant source without an involvement with suffering. “Everybody should suspend judgement if it proceeds from the dictates of reason (Smith, 2007, p. 51).” Finally, the suspension is not generic. It is definitely a route one must follow alone although this does not mean that the sceptic cannot be of help on this journey. He pursues it by understanding the discourse about his suffering, in the sense of being able to adapt to the first measures taken for the suspension of judgement in the context of the dogmatism in question. The dogmatisms are equal in their suffering but each of them suffers in its own way. The sceptic administers the suspension in distinct ways in accordance with particular therapeutic relationships. “Sceptical therapy is effectively a multiple therapy which is geared towards each dogmatist in particular and as a result of aspects of its own doctrine (Smith, 2007, p. 52).” If it can be said that “all that the therapeutic sceptic offers is the path that he has followed himself”. One way of interpreting this statement can be found in the reference to what has been traversed in the suspension of judgement itself. In other words, what the sceptic has to offer is his testimony. He might say: - “what happened to me was this and hence the person who suffers is free to do what he thinks best with this” or in another situation – “a failure of recognition results from a difference of language games”. Thus a way of interpreting the sentence would imply that the act of therapy is only consistent if it rejects the claim that it is able to dissuade someone frombelieving that he can endure his suffering. “Everything that is taken as therapy must give up its plan to cure dogmatism so that its notions can be consistent with those of scepticism itself (Smith, 2007, p. 55).” At least, it seems to us that it can be interpreted in this way. Now there are several ways of being guided to follow the correct path. In our view, it is a very restrictive kind of experience that is based on an individual narrative where someone just follows his own path. Individual testimony might be the worst way of offering benefits to someone who happens to be passing by, simply because tthe individual adopts a take-it-or- leave-it approach. In truth, we are upright in our differences, but in leaving rather than taking. The relationship with testimony is one of assent, caused by the quality of the narrative, the respectability of the speaker, the credulity of the listener or various combinations of these etc. The sceptical therapist is much better advised to abandon his claims to be able to heal in a medical (but not a pictorial) sense, since this is really more a sign of what can arouse impatience with regard to the sick. This is because the medical notion of healing tends to induce a feeling of resignation when faced with the incurable. The best that the sceptic can do is to welcome the dogmatist in his suffering and 292

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this has more to do with witnessing than hearing what he has to say. It is a case of suspending judgement with regard to the cure, the ailment and also the existence of disease. After being provoked to display his ability to cure a dogma, the sceptic replies by showing a willingness to listen. Welcoming an account is not the same thing as embarking on a debate nor is it a question of confronting different forces but rather of interacting with them. It is not a struggle but a physical commitment in which the sceptic neither resists nor surrenders. He is active or passive to the extent that he is able to disarm resistance and afterwards, the dogmas, if in truth they are not much the same thing. If sceptical therapy is like a confrontation between master singers, in which the display will serve to bring about a defeat, are we not faced with a dramatic scene? If this is the case, the sceptic will be able to do very little because nobody knows about anyone else, and among other reasons, because he is not exposed to any risk. Thus the sceptic attempts to improve the virtue of listening. He is open-minded in describing and treating any kind of suffering and in this way, a philanthropist. For this reason, listening entails allowing the maturity of the dogmatic image to terminate in dissolution. It is in this sense that the sceptic describes like a painter and looks after reports like a curator. If we were to choose a semantic field for the relationship between dogmatists and sceptics, it would be more in the ambivalence of amorous dynamics than in the fragile ambiguity that is unable to resist a battle or stay the course. It would be grossly mistaken to presume that the sceptic is unable to preserve his tranquillity of soul in each phase of the cure, either when involved in self-reflection or in finding some value in the absence of anything else. Montaigne does not merely heal himself, but makes contact with the cures that he finds for others with whom he is closely involved. His practice in the world involved writing alone and about himself (his work included the production of a medical handbook which served to clarify his descriptions and record the successes and failures of his life). Nobody can cure himself without curing others. Nobody can cure himself without also incurring the risk of being cured. I do not cure myself – we cure each other. A critic’s paractice is widely recognized as entailing the refining of descriptive skills and the shaping of images in a way that can allow us to locate the respective points that need curing so that they can be treated. But at least, it must be agreed that criticism is preceded by listening. If tranquillity can only be obtained by sidestepping the need for seeing and hearing, once this has been achieved it will require replacing the supposed sceptic with a silent camera. However, this will be futile because the critic will be surprised by the sound of heartbeats in the chest and the loud noise of its synapses. The tranquillity of the sceptic is of value because it mingles with others whom it can help, even if they do not want to be heard (which is rare). A sceptic can be distinguished from a dogmatist because he subordinates his speech

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to his faculties of awareness. Scepticism seeks to produce a masters reception and incidental broadcasters. When the sceptic utters something, his way of carrying it out allows his image to evade the suffering. If he takes refuge in a forest, he does not do so to live in a state of peace with out any risks but to rediscover himself in another environment (Smith, 2007, p. 55-56). This is a key factor in the seduction exercised by this kind of therapy, where the sceptic is found to be willing to take part in an adventure, not for the sake of it but because someone else needs him to do so. It is customary to say that nothing is more certain than one’s own pain and nothing more uncertain than the pain of someone else. If someone else suffers, it must be described in its gradations. The description does not need to assume the form of being expressed, since the essential thing is for the sceptic to be in the position to describe it. Thus it bcomes increasingly more apparent that the seduction exercised by the sceptic derives from its selfknowledge. On most occasions, what is understood by self-knowledge is knowledge of the ego – the features that turn into the ‘I’ itself and the way in which accidents leave distinctive imprints on the subject. Knowing oneself provides the dynamics for becoming oneself. If this is the case, the therapeutic exercise can be viewed as the time when the sceptic speaks of himself to someone who is prepared to listen in a way that allows a mutual dialogue to take place in every sense. It would be much like one of those conversations in which each party only speaks of himself, and one only waits for the opportunity to enter the conversation when two or more people are not talking together. This kind of approach would not be very productive and even less so in a therapeutic situation. Someone who suffers has a need to speak of himself and certainly on the subject of his pain. It is up to the sceptic to provide an opportunity for the dogmatist to speak on his own so that this certainty can be broken up by his own means. Regardless of whether or not he can create a narrative of self-knowledge, it is clear that the sceptic needs this so that he can offer help. There are times when it may seem that his utterance is like a confession to escape from this ‘imprisonment’ since what he seeks is consistency and he must be able to make a formal innovation so that he is able to speak without being assertive or be aphasic without being quiet (Bicca, 2012, p. 198 and 205). The essay, as an eminently sceptical and affirmative genre, is one of the keys to understanding this search but not so much in its historical form as through its implicit gestures. By producing this, the sceptic can help others in the path they follow but if the therapist is reduced to speaking about himself, it will be like publishing brain teasers hidden inside a newspaper and the anxiety someone experiences in trying to solve them. This applies even more to the particular person who does this since the person who suffers is always the person in the wrong (Smith, 2007, p. 63)1.

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The self-knowledge of the sceptic does not seem to us to apply to a particular ego, even when he expressly states that it is. This is because the particular ego is as fictional as the general ego, or collective spirit. The goal of self-knowledge, in the view of the sceptic, is how to bring about the undoing of the ego. It is known to disappear or get to know the other and help him in the very process of disappearing. In our view, it is mistaken to read Montaigne or Bayle as creating narratives about a particular ego. What they emphasize is: 1. 2. 3. 4.

The radical dimension of otherness, That it is to some extent full of people who can be distinguished from us, That this array of sensations can be regarded as particular, and That we are reminded of a general meeting.

The concern of the particular is to have ideas. Scepticism has little to do with ideas. But although it may sometimes show an interest in them at the time when we are concerned with taking stock of our ideas, it might be that, at all events, this is not the ideal time for treating someone’s pain (Smith, 2007, p. 207). Montaigne with his landscapes and Bayle with his portraits are much more involved in ‘undoing’ than becoming a particular ego. If we can be cured by reading Montaigne or Bayle, without needing anything else, it is because we are prepared, so to speak, to be abandoned to ourselves. Scepticism consists of “emancipation with regard to selfishness”, in the “abolition of subjectivity”, rather than in the “construction of an inner fortress (Bicca, 2012, p. 207)”. It is not a question of a monologue given by the ego but the “sanctification and [...] neutralization of the mind in itself”. “It is not only a question of making changes to strengthen the ¨ego ¨, but of patiently destroying it bit by bit [...] (Bicca, 2012, p. 209)”.

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Burnyeat, M. (1998). Can the Sceptic Live his Scepticism? In The original sceptics: A controversy. Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company. Smith, P. J. (2007). Terapia e Vida Comum. Sképsis, 1(1).

ENDNOTE

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At any rate, the question does not seem to be right or wrong but to ask whether one should show a willingness to help.

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325

About the Contributors

Constantino Pereira Martins’s academic interests cover an area of research at the intersection of Theology, Political Philosophy, Cinema and Aesthetics. Graduation and Master in Philosophy. Currently PhD student at Nova University of Lisbon with the support of FCT Foundation. His present investigation is focused on Humor and Comedy. The research is building a relation between Cinema and Philosophy, aiming for both theoretical and pragmatic approach. The analysis of Humor seeks to understand its profligacy and founding disruption. Regarding the aesthetic movement, the aim is to build a general theory of genre, in the subversive loop that animates the search for the radicalism and impurity of humour. In the dilemma of identity, between subjectivity and the collective, the cinematic effects will be targeted towards the analysis of Chaplin and Woody Allen. Manuel José Damásio is the Head of the Film and Media Arts Department at Universidade Lusófona de Humanidades e Tecnologias in Lisbon, Portugal. He Holds a Phd from Universidade Nova de Lisboa and a Msc from Napier University in the UK. He has worked extensively in the areas of media and audiences research and is the author of more than 50 articles in international journals with peer review and 25 chapters in peer reviewed international handbooks. He’s the author of two books on media theory and digital media. He’s currently the principal investigator in one h2020 and two Erasmus + research and training projects. *** Simber Atay was born in Gaziantep (1958). She studied at The Ege University, Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of Cinema-TV (1976-1980). Her Undergraduate thesis: “Kemal Sunal Comedy” (1980). Her Master thesis: “The Early Period of Photography and Ottoman Photographers” (1983); Her PhD Thesis: “Approaches in Turkish Film Critics” (1990). She is professor at The Dokuz Eylül University. She lectures currently at The Dokuz Eylül University, Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of Photography and Department of Film Design; Faculty of Education, Department

About the Contributors

of Painting; Institute of Fine Arts. She lectured also, between 2006 – 2011 at Anadolu University, Faculty of Communication Sciences, Department of Journalism. Her research interests: Theories of Photography, Postmodern Cinema, Philosophy of Distance Education, E- Learning Culture. Her Lessons: Theories of Photography I-II-III-IV (undergraduate), Photography Techniques ı-II (undergraduate), PhotoProject I-II(undergraduate), Theories of Postmodernism and Art of Cinema (PhD), Cultural Memory and Art of Cinema (PhD). Paulo Barroso, BA and MA in Communication Sciences; BA, MA and PhD. in Philosophy; post-doctorate researcher (6 years) in Communication Sciences, assistant professor of the public higher education (present employment since 2009 at the Higher School of Education, Viseu – Portugal) teaching Advertising Semiotics, Sociology of Communication, and Ethics, researcher at the Communication and Language Studies Center (Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, New University of Lisbon) and current research interest in semiotics, philosophy of language, argumentation and rhetoric, ethics, media languages, and theories and models of communication, having published several articles and participated in international conferences in these fields. Adrien Barton’s research in ethics has focused on the influence of decisions, with a special interest for nudges, which consist in influencing people to make supposedly better decisions, while letting them free to choose otherwise. He also pursues research in formal ontology. Laura González is an artist, dancer and writer. When she is not following the footsteps of Freud, Lacan and Marx with her camera, she teaches psychoanalysis and creates performances, which she shows all over the world. Her recent work explores knowledge and the body of the hysteric through film, dance, photography, text and voice. She the curator of the touring exhibition Alternative Maternals, and the coeditor of a book entitled ‘Madness, Women and the Power of Art’ (InterDisciplinary Press, Oxford, 2013) to which she contributed a work in collaboration with Eleanor Bowen. She is currently writing a monograph on seduction and art, which will be published by Cambridge Scholars in 2016. Ana Cabral Martins has an Undergraduate and a M.A. in Communication Studies, Specialization in Cinema and Television. Her Master’s thesis project, “Overlap and the Cinematographic Experience,” marked the starting point of her examination of the digital paradigm shift that is remaking the entire motion picture industry. For her PhD thesis in Digital Media, Ana Cabral Martins’ project is titled “Cinema in the Age of Digital Technology: A New Architecture of Immersion”. 326

About the Contributors

Dina Mendonça holds a Masters in Philosophy for Children (with supervision of Matthew Lipman and Ann Margaret Sharp), and a Doctoral Degree by the University of South Carolina (with supervision by Tom Burke) on John Dewey’s Concept of Experience. Currently she is a postdoctoral fellow in Philosophy at the Instituto de Filosofia da Nova where she works on developing a Situated Approach to Emotions, a novel and groundbreaking account that takes emotions as dynamic and active situational occurrences (Mendonça 2012), and explores and identifies further complexities of our emotional world (Mendonça 2013). In addition to her research work in philosophy of emotion, she promotes and creates original material for application of philosophy as an aid in the creative processes to all schooling stages. Ben Trubody is an independent scholar and part-time lecturer at the University of Gloucestershire, UK. He is also a lecturer for the Worker’s Educational Association where he teaches introductory courses to philosophy and the history of ideas. Dr. Trubody’s research interests include philosophy of science, the public understanding of science, the history of philosophy, critical theory and hermeneutics. John Wilson currently teaches ethics for Loyola students at Assumption University. He is interested in the interface between sociology and philosophy.

327

328

Index

17th Century 6, 17 5th Century 260, 284

A Abject Art 112-115, 119-120, 122, 128 academia 20, 23-26 Academy Awards 140, 153, 157 Advertising messages 234-235, 239-240, 242, 244, 248-249, 251-252, 258 Advertising Semiotics 232, 234-235, 258 Alain Delon 63-64 Ambiguity 1, 3, 6, 8, 15, 18, 20-23, 26, 32, 98, 102, 111-112, 118, 176, 293 Amol Palekar 130, 133, 139-140, 143, 153, 156, 160 Andres Serrano 125, 128 Aristotle 6, 12-13, 112-115, 121-122, 127, 239, 255, 267, 273 Autonomy 34, 39-40, 46-47, 49-53, 55-57

B Baudrillard 1, 3-8, 26-27, 29, 130, 132-133, 135-139, 141-142, 150, 154-156, 158, 165-168, 170-171, 173-180, 182-183, 187, 198, 203, 209, 225, 233, 250-251, 255-256

C Camera Lucida 67, 73

Captology 165, 175 Cinema of seduction 130, 132-139, 141-142, 144, 150-151, 154 cinematic interpretation 77 classical mythology 59-61 commercial interests 212, 214 commodity 24, 160-161, 170-173, 211, 238, 246-247, 254 Corpse 112, 114, 118, 121-126, 128 Crime 23, 63, 85, 90, 97-98, 102, 169-170

D dance routines 131, 133-134, 143-144 dance sequences 130, 133-136, 138-139, 145, 159 Danto 112-114, 116, 119-120, 123, 128 Death 30, 37, 66-69, 84-86, 90, 92-93, 104, 111-115, 118-123, 125-128, 251, 260, 263-264, 266 Deep Emotions 201-202 deferral 130, 132, 134-135, 137, 144 del Castillo 165, 177-178 Deliberation 40, 42-43, 56, 218, 220, 231 Desire 4, 34, 36-39, 44-45, 47-51, 54, 56-57, 59, 62-64, 69-70, 72, 77-80, 82, 86-89, 104, 112, 117-118, 122-123, 131, 133, 135, 138-141, 143, 145-148, 151, 153, 157, 159, 170-176, 178-182, 184, 187, 207, 217-219, 231, 236-237, 239, 241, 244-245, 247, 250, 252, 258, 277-279 Disgust 112, 114, 116-119, 121, 127

Index

dogmatism 267, 269, 271-272, 275-277, 282, 287-290, 292 Dominique Mainon 91, 94, 96-97, 99-100, 104, 109-110

E Ecologically Rational 42, 51, 55 emotional traits 188, 200, 202 entertainment industry 123, 127 Eric Cave 34, 39 everyday life 127, 209, 252, 256, 263, 266, 275, 288, 291

F Family of Surprise 188 fast food 213, 215 Femme Fatale 86, 90-94, 96-100, 102-111 Fetishism 100, 165, 170-173, 184, 230, 238-239 folk 130, 133-135, 139-140, 144 free-market economy 21, 26 Freud 116-117, 125, 129, 133, 155, 165, 168, 170-172, 174, 178-181, 183-186

G gallery space 166-169, 177, 181-182, 186 goal-conflict recognition 47, 49, 52, 55, 57 Gone Girl 90-91, 100, 102-105, 107-109 Greek 12, 60, 70, 73-75, 92, 210, 234-236, 239, 247-249, 285

H Heuristic 34, 41, 55 Hindi 130-133, 139, 143-144, 150-151, 153, 155, 157-161 Hindi language films 130, 157 Hollywood musicals 131, 134, 157 horror plays 112

I Iconocracy 232, 235, 249, 254, 258 Ideological Sign 232, 258

immediacy 78, 81, 83-84, 119, 136, 196 Indian cinema 130-131, 134-136, 139, 154157, 159 Infinity 5-6, 18, 22, 32 Intention-Transparent 44, 55

J Janus 189-190, 192-193, 201, 204 Jean Baudrillard 1, 3, 27, 29, 130, 132, 135, 156, 165-166, 183, 233, 250, 256 Jenefer Robinson 193 Juicy Salif 175-176, 184 Juliet Schor 206, 212, 214-216, 223, 227, 229

K Kristeva 112-113, 117-119, 121, 123, 127129

L Lacan 5, 29, 58, 70-71, 75, 135, 156, 166, 168, 171, 174, 178-181, 184-187, 229 Lethal Ladies 91, 96-97, 108 low self-esteem 215, 221-223

M Man Ray 165, 177-178 Manipulation 34-35, 38-39, 52-53, 57, 102, 188-189, 193, 197-200, 203, 252-253 Manipulative Influence 55-56 Marx 170-173, 185-186, 207, 227, 238-239, 257 Means-Transparent 44-46, 55 Mehmet Turgut 58, 72-73 metaphysical notions 6, 14 Motive 34, 39, 49, 57

N Negative Action of Seduction 55 news media 208, 223 Noir 85, 90-94, 96-100, 102-108, 110 non-transparent 35, 43, 46, 51-52

329

Index

O objet petit 58, 62, 70-73, 174, 178-182 Oppenheim 165, 177-178

P Paradigm 1, 3-7, 9-10, 13-15, 17-19, 30, 32, 188-191, 254 Paradigm Scenario 188-189, 191 paradoxical relationship 113 passion 64, 66, 69, 78-81, 83, 85-88, 115, 219, 267, 269 Pattern of Sentiment 191-192 Persuasion 1, 60, 188-189, 193, 197-200, 203, 232-234, 236-237, 240, 242, 245, 251-252 philosophical sources 113 Photograph 67-71, 125 Phyllis Dietrichson 91, 99, 104-105 play 2, 4-5, 11, 26, 47-49, 78, 88, 94-95, 119, 130, 132-135, 137, 139, 141-142, 146, 150, 154, 160, 162, 168, 176, 180, 182, 189, 195, 197, 199, 203-204, 224, 247 Positive Action of Seduction 37, 55 postmodern cinema 130, 132-133, 135-139, 141, 150, 154 Psychoanalysis 2, 93, 107, 132, 156, 165-168, 173, 178-186 psychoanalytic point 113, 117 public space. 212, 234-235, 251, 254, 258

red dress 35, 44-45 Reversibility 5-6, 8, 11-12, 14, 20-22, 25-26, 32, 81, 83-84, 86-87, 141, 154, 170, 174, 180 Rhetoric 59-60, 70-71, 87, 185, 232, 234-235, 239-242, 250-258, 260 Rita Hayworth 90-91, 97-99 Ronaldo De Sousa 188

S Sandhya Gokhale 130, 133, 139, 143, 160 sceptic 259, 264-267, 269-282, 284-296 Scepticism 11, 259, 263-267, 270-292, 294-296 Scientism 5-6, 20, 22-23, 32 seductive influences 35, 39 seductive object 170-171, 174, 176, 182 Sextus Empiricus 267, 287, 290 Situated Approach 188-189, 191-193 Situated Approach to Emotions 188-189, 191-192 Situation 2, 11, 16, 42-43, 45, 48, 64, 111, 142, 149, 151, 159, 162, 181, 188-193, 203, 206, 213, 219-220, 223-224, 274, 276, 281, 286-287, 291-292, 294 song and dance 130-139, 143-145, 151-153, 155, 158-159, 162 Startle 188-189, 193-195, 205 subaltern 130, 133-138, 154, 160 surrealist works 165, 177

R

T

Reason 2, 6, 9, 13, 18, 20, 23, 28, 31, 34, 38, 41-43, 45-46, 56, 87, 124, 128, 153, 158, 177, 219-220, 226, 228, 234, 237, 240, 242-244, 247, 257, 261, 263, 265, 267, 269-270, 272, 274-275, 277, 281, 285-290, 292-293

Taboo 112-113, 123, 127-128 Thomas Kuhn 1, 6, 29, 31 Thriller 85, 90-91, 98, 100, 102-103, 105, 107 Totality 5-6, 11-12, 18, 22, 33 Transparency 34, 40, 43-45, 51-52, 57, 88, 132, 167, 183

330

Index

V Vamp 90-91, 93-96, 100, 107, 110 Vertigo 77-78, 81, 84-87, 139

W Willpower Capacities 34-35, 40, 43, 46-50, 52, 55, 57

World 1-3, 5-7, 9-13, 15-16, 19, 26-27, 29, 33, 59-60, 63-64, 66, 69-72, 79, 81, 96-97, 111, 113, 115, 117, 119, 122, 126, 130-131, 154, 156-157, 159, 166, 168-169, 171, 173-174, 177, 182, 189190, 201-203, 211, 216, 218-220, 224, 229, 234, 239, 245-246, 250-256, 260, 262-263, 266-267, 269, 271, 275, 279, 281, 284-286, 288-290, 293

331