FREE ESSAY ON GUN CONTROL VS. GUN RIGHTS

GUN CONTROL VS. GUN RIGHTS

Kei Urano
9/16/99
Critical Essay #1
During the first four weeks of our class, we have been reading and discussing numerous
essays on the study of culture. Each theorist we have read has questions and problems
about the study of culture. They have suggested us solutions to the problems as well. I
have decided to closely analyze the essays from Richard Johnson, James Clifford, and
Clifford Geertz. 
In his essay, What is Cultural Studies Anyway? Richard Johnson goes into detail
describing critique. Critique involves stealing away the more useful elements and
rejecting the rest.(pg. 575). By comparison, Johnson defines cultural studies as a
process of finding useful knowledge about different analysis of culture. Johnson explains
how anglicizing of old Marxism is a good example of critique in cultural studies. By
explaining how old Marxism has a significant role in forming cultural studies, Johnson
implies how history of economics has a major role in forming culture. Johnson believes
that there are three main premises where old Marxism has influenced cultural study. The
first is that social relations influence culture. I agree with Johnson. Different class,
sex, race, and age create different relationships. The second premise is that each
individual and social group has different limits of power defining different needs. For
example, homeless people have different needs than the rich. This is an example of money
being defined as power. The third premise is that culture is influenced by social
struggles and differences. I don't know any culture where every individual is truly
equal. There is always a struggle for power. Critique in cultural studies raises several
questions for Johnson. If we have progressed by critique, are there not dangers that
codifications will involve systematic closure? If the momentum is to strive for really
useful knowledge, will academic codification help this? Is not the priority to become
more 'popular' rather than more academic? ...In any case, students, now have lectures,
courses and examinations 
in the study of culture. In these circumstances, how can they occupy a critical tradition
critically?(pg. 577). These questions have been puzzling me as well. I don't see how
cultural studies can be more 'popular' rather than more academic. 'Popular' means
majority. Johnson questions the reason for classes cultural studies. Does this mean that
we need to study individually? If so, how could it become more 'popular'? I believe that
Johnson's questions makes the readers go in circles. Another thing that puzzles me is
that Johnson believes that old Marxism has a significant role in cultural studies.
Marxism explains how the working group will overthrow the class system and establish a
Communist society. Yet, Johnson believes that the three premises discussed earlier
influence culture. Is he saying that he is against cultural studies? If this is so, I
don't see why he is a cultural theorist.
James Clifford wrote On Collecting Art and Culture. Clifford starts by explaining about
universality and non-universality of collecting. Some sort of 'gathering' around the self
and the group - the assemblage of a material 'world,' the marking-off of a subjective
domain that is now 'other' - is probably universal. (no pg.#). This explains how human
nature embodies hierarchies of value. But the notion that this gathering involves the
accumulation of possessions, the idea that identity is a kind of wealth...is surely not
universal. (no pg.3). This non-universal way of collecting has been around in the Western
culture for a long time. Clifford then goes on to explain the different concepts of
collecting and fetishizing. Clifford describes fetishism as a collection kept more in
secrecy. It is hard to say if a fetish has more value than a collection. I believe that
fetish has a much more personal value than a regular collection. A regular collection is
put out into display because the object has value to others as well. A fetish is valuable
to the individual. The difference between collecting and fetishizing brings out the
question of how different objects are distinguished. Clifford distinguishes objects in
the diagram call the semiotic square. Clifford explains how the value of an object
proceeds from bottom to top and 
left to right. I have several problems with Clifford's diagram. First, with this diagram,
Clifford has limited culture with just art. By reading different essays from other
theorist, we can see that culture cannot be explained clearly with just the Art-Culture
System which Clifford explains. Another problem I have is that Clifford has classified
inventions and fakes, or anti-art, as a non- culture object according to the diagram. I
don't see how Clifford could classify anything as a non-culture. The changing of
technology influences the changing of cultures. And fake art could be a culture. There
are people who collect only fakes. Wouldn't the collecting of fakes be considered a part
of culture even if the size is fairly small? Clifford should have given us his own
definition of culture in his essay. Another problem I have is that Clifford sates,  There
can be no direct movement from zone 4 to zone 1. (no pg.#). And also, Clifford limits art
as being original and singular on the diagram. I believe an old furniture with a unique
design could move directly from a non-art to art. A chair, which has been reproduced for
commercial use, could be a non-art in the beginning. But as time went by, the chairs
could be worn out and be destroyed. Lets sat that there is just one out of many chairs
has survived. Now, as people's tastes for art changes and varies, this one remaining
chair can move directly from a non-art object to an art object. I am also troubled by the
use of the word, value is used so often by Clifford. He did not give his definition of
value. Clifford has limited the concept of culture significantly by linking culture with
just art.
In Clifford Geertz's Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture, he
explains the limitations of using literary techniques to analyze culture. Geertz explains
in great detail about the philosophy behind thin description and thick description. He
gives an example of two boys rapidly closing and opening one of their eye to describe the
meaning. Thin description would be the simple explanation of one boy opening and closing
his eye very rapidly. A boy closing and opening his eyes trying to deceive explains Thick
description 
the other to make him think that a conspiracy is in motion. The other boy cannot tell if
he is blinking unintentionally, winking, or fake-winking. So thick description is a
description with an explanation or a deeper meaning to the event. The example of the two
boys is told to show how ethnography is thick description. Geertz explains that, Doing
ethnography is like trying to read (in the sense of 'construct' a reading of) a
manuscript - foreign, faded, full of ellipses, incoherencies, suspicious emendations, and
tedious commentaries, but written not in conventionalized graphs of sound but in
transient examples of shaped behavior. (pg. 242). Studying past cultures is like putting
a puzzle together with missing pieces. A person can put his own piece in for the missing
place to try to see the whole picture. Just because his piece fits doesn't mean that it
is the right piece. Culture is not always what it seems. Ward Goodenough explains this
perfectly.  'Culture [is located] in the minds and hearts of men. (pg. 242). Geertz way
of thinking about cultural study is very similar to the way Richard Johnson feels about
cultural study. They both feel that culture is just a summary and an interpretation. The
difference is that Johnson sees more dangers to the study of incomplete culture. Clifford
questions the reason for cultural study but does not try very hard to answer them. On the
other hand, Geertz sees the benefits of cultural study more clearly. He sees it in a more
positive way. The whole point of semiotic approach to culture is, as I have said, to aid
us in gaining to the conceptual world in which our subjects live so that we can, in some
extended sense of the term, converse with them. (pg. 252-253). 
The three theorists all believe that cultural study is too generalized. I too agree with
them. I have come in agreement with Geertz the most between the three theorists: ...if
one looks for systematic treatises in the field, one is so soon disappointed, the more so
if one finds any. (pg. 252).