Today Brian Williams interviewed Barack Obama and asked him about bowling in Pennsylvania, wearing a tie and rolling (is that the word?) the ball in the gutter. Obama smiled and said that he had dropped by a bowling alley to talk to "folks," and everyone was having a good time, so they urged him to bowl a couple rounds. He had, for the first time in many years. Then the media got a hold of it and suddenly it became a "signifier," he said, of his being out of touch with working-class people.
I remember when hipster intellectuals in New York, influenced by Lacan or the Frankfurt School, or Leo Strauss, for all I knew, began using the word "signifier" instead of "symbol" 20 years ago. They slipped it into fancy conversation, sometimes they even slipped it into fancy journalism. I still don’t understand exactly what it means. I’m sure Obama does. He’s a Harvard intellectual. And no that doesn’t mean he can’t represent working-class people.
Philip, the word "signify" has a 100-year history of usage in African American Vernacular English.
See for instance,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signifying
or Henry Louis Gates's "The Signifying Monkey."
Of course Obama did use the word in its more academic sense, but I suspect the it came to mind because of his relative fluency in black vernacular.
In my mind, that makes it an even better metaphor for Obama's ability to span the Democratic coalition.
My skin crawls when I hear the word hipster. EEEW! I may come off as completely unskilled and unpolished as a writer and thinker, but I still think I can tell Phil that he should not use terms like hip or hipster.
I don't think that the word intellectual means much. If Obama were a genius, I might take notice. But to call someone an intellectual doesn't say much about him. Didn't intellectuals drag us into Iraq?
The punditocracy and mainstream media ignore genuine working class issues 364 days a year, for decades – issues such as the rising gap between the classes in this country, tax breaks for the rich, outsourcing jobs to other countries, the loss of manufacturing and union jobs, lack of decent healthcare coverage, decrepit public schools, and on and on.
When John Edwards, son of the working class, talked about these issues, the pundits sneered at him. I heard two NPR guys with good college accents (you can hear it in the ir voices, I went to several good colleges and a couple of public universities, and there is a "good college" voice) making fun of Edwards' stump speech referring to his father the millworker. The pundits claimed he was fomenting class war by raising the issues he did.
But all of a sudden these same pundits are worried that because Obama doesn't wear a Nascar gimme cap and bowl expertly, he's not going to represent the working class?
My liver can't stand it. I have to quit following politics. I'm going to sign off now and read some positive affirmations to keep my white blood cell count up (chemo today).
as succinct and evocative a posting as you'll ever find by *Leila above.
maybe the reason why *Todd is creeped out by the word "hipster" is because Lenny Bruce said it best when he said:
"There's nothing sadder than an old hipster."
we envision the comb-over avec ponytail over-the-hill Husserl-quoting horndog shlub splashing grenadine in the face of his old hipster buddy for his overbearing heuristic chutzpah. not a pretty sight.
Obama is a transparent mole, representing only corrupt forces.
Decency was Edwards and Dean.
Obama is not. Neither the Steve Walt crowds, or the Arafat and Mandela worshipers.
I am awake, and angry that Obama is still on the stage.
Obama is a transparent mole, representing only corrupt forces.
Decency was Edwards and Dean.
Obama is not. Neither the Steve Walt crowds, or the Arafat and Mandela worshipers.
I am awake, and angry that Obama is still on the stage.
For Todd.
The Neocons are not merely intellectuals. They are the American branch of the transnational Jabotinskian intelligentsia, i.e., political intellectual elite.
I believe that in Polish inteligencja comes into vogue around the third partition of Poland (about the same time Polonia comes to mean Poland in exile or the spirit of Poland).
In the Polish conceptualization(probably expressed most clearly by Karol Libelt in O miłości ojczyzny) the inteligencja is the brain of the nation and creates its moral virtue.
The concept of интеллигенция in the Russian context is derivative from the Polish usage but has an oppositional context.
For the Soviets the intelligentsia constituted not a class but a stratum.
"The concept of интеллигенция in the Russian context is derivative from the Polish usage but has an oppositional context."
I meant:
"The concept of интеллигенция in the Russian context is derivative from the Polish usage but has an oppositional connotation — at least during the Russian imperial period."
You insinuate that Obama is sort of snob or philistine because he used the phrase "signifier"-and then your imply he's sort of a straussian "wise man"
You could'not be more wrong. As far as I can tell his philosophy is the opposite of Strauss'"Noble lies and perpetual war"
link to informationclearinghouse.info
For the first time since JFK you have an egalitarian candidate for the presidency, and what's more : A man willing to stand up to US corporations and kleptocracy.
link to informationclearinghouse.info
Yes, Obama is an intellectual. I don't see why that should disqualify him, After 8 years of "Bushism" any postgraduate would appear to be quite a wordsmith.
Leave it to the mainstream media to derail the political debate, you should know better.
Thanks, theo, that's interesting, so I learned something new today.
Although would black usage survive Harvard? Linguistically he grew up with a mixed influence. What was stronger the language of mother and grandparents or playmates? Were his early playmates necessarily black only?
I think the context suggests the linguistic couple signifier/signified. The word/symbol vs the thing meant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistics#History_of_linguistics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_de_Saussure#Course_in_General_Linguistics
Course in General Linguistics
…
Its central notion is that language may be analyzed as a formal system of differential elements, apart from the messy dialectics of real-time production and comprehension. Examples of these elements includes the notion of the linguistic sign, the signifier, the signified, and the referent.
Admittedly I find this hard to believe:
"I still don't understand exactly what it means."
theo's on point. Playing the Dozens–dissin', signifyin', snappin' etc, is a contest of exchanging witty insults on the street. You get "street cred" that way without physically fighting. Having spent thirty years in Chicago, I heard, watch this a lot; Obama surely soaked it in–even if after he went to the ivy league. And he realizes by now the Hillarites are playing the upscale Dozens on him to destroy his credibility on the working streets of America.
That's interesting, Joachim. I've heard the neocons called everything from Jacobins and Zionists to Fascists and Trotskyites, but never Jabotinskians. I've read a bit about Jabotinsky in the past, but not enough to be able to spot his disciples in sheep's clothing. I'll read more.
But I still believe that a firing squad is in order for the leaders without knowing the exact philosophical underpinnings of the neocon movement.
I think Marilyn hit the hipster on the head.
firing squad is appropriate or whatever is done at abu ghraib. i want the neocons(israelis in american camouflage) to enjoy for a lengthy time period their medicine for muslims)
"My liver can't stand it. I have to quit following politics. I'm going to sign off now and read some positive affirmations to keep my white blood cell count up (chemo today)." : Leila Abu-Saba
read AL MANAR ONLINE: "all the news fit to print".
"Playing the Dozens–dissin', signifyin', snappin' etc, is a contest of exchanging witty insults on the street. You get "street cred" that way without physically fighting."
Charles: unconditional surrender.I'll shut up again. As I'll grap cheeky nitwit by its neck should it reach out for the keyboard again;)
nitwit asked me to tell you he feels a little ashamed by now and will put The Signifying Monkey on its reading list.
Your mama! (Just kidding)