Emily Post-Structuralism

Q. Dont you hate fourth of july?

so damn loud and annoying

A. It is difficult to find the mental energy to hate a mere chrono-political marker in the vastness of time (if you subscribe to solar-linear time, that is), when other objects demand our attention. Indeed, can time even be said to constitute an object? Dates can constitute “memorials,” but memory is always formed by the construction of a fuzzy Presence, displaced by the Trace of past Presents— However, that does not make them “real” in the same way that other objects of desire are. No one can desire “fourth of july” just as no one can hate it. It simply does not exist in any meaningful way.

On July 4, 362 BCE, the Second Battle of Mantinea took place on the island of Arcadia between the Thebans and the Spartans. The outcome of the battle led to a hegemonic shift in the ancient northern Mediterranean kulturkreis as it moved from Spartan to Theban dominance, ultimately opening the region to dominance by the Macedonians by the end of the 4th century BCE. Many people died.

The calendars used to mark the date would be unintelligible to any of the participants on the battle, and to my knowledge, no one remembers, cares about, or celebrates the event. It is utterly meaningless, and bears only an accidental relationship to the “date” that we have assigned the event. Even if I harbored secret Spartan sympathies, I the object of my “hatred” would not be the date itself, but my hatred of Memory itself— my own construction of Past/Present/Future would be embedded within memories associated (but not constituting) the date.

As such, if you find yourself hating non-objects, like arbitrary time divisions, practice Forgetting. Forget to go to work, forget to feed yourself, forget what day it is, forget what has happened in the past, forget what you have agreed to do do in the “future,” forget language. It is only through the act of radical Un-Remembering that we can undo the violence that the Trace enacts upon our Being. I have not been able to remember my name or the “current” year for most of my life, and I’m doing fantastically! Once you have forgotten everything, you will truly be able to live as pure Presence, and your problem will resolve itself! Good luck!

Q. True or False : Crab is the most difficult food to eat?

A. “Crab” is not, strictly speaking, food. Rather, “crab” represents a whole universe of linguistic elements— animal, astrological, affective, vegetable, and geometric. Furthermore, “truth” and “falsehood” can only be assessed within discursive-ethical frameworks that support such binaries. This is not such a framework, and as such, I reject the every foundation that your question rests upon.

However, in the interest of teasing out the real horror at the heart of your culinary query, I will accept a “normative” reading in which you ask whether or not crustaceans in the infraorder Brachyura are the most difficult thing for a human to consume, presumably due to the exoskeleton surrounding the edible meat. However, what is “difficulty” in this scenario? Difficult for whom? I would imaging that your consumption of crab is most difficult for the crab under consideration. After being boiled (often alive, c.f. Wallace, “Consider the Lobster”), a consumer uses specialized tools to crack open the dead insect and attempts to pull the edible insides out by force. I would not consider that ideal for any creature. Furthermore, we can see great effort extended by the consumers, who must not only extract the meat, but deal with the painful realization that they are in fact monsters disassembling insects with their hands.

Q. Is Lasagna appropriate for a wedding meal?

A. Only if you are not Italian, in which case it can be appropriat-ive under certain circumstances. But I joke. In actuality, Lasagna is a perfect metaphorical representation for a wedding. Lasagna is not a mixed food--it is instead predicated on distinct layers that interact, to varying degrees, during the baking process. We could see this as the ways in which distinct individuals--though married together--inevitably mingle without truly becoming unitary. Indeed, the final integration of all ingredients does not come except in the stomach following mechanical mastication (perhaps a nod to Deleuze’s conception of the body????). As such, it presents marriage as an im/possibility, as a messy layering that never quite creates a wholeness. You will be able to see this illustrated when several children inevitably excavate the Lasagna into its component layers, consuming only the parts they want (another apt metaphor for our romantico-social blindness that only allows us to see the part of the Other that we find appetizing). In other words, Lasagna can be seen as a comment on the fiction of romantic unity, a witty response to the saccharine utopianism of the wedding ceremony.

In addition, Lasagna is a very heavy meal; your guests will fall into a stupor after the meal. Your guests, high on the kitsch of the wedding proper, will then be faced with a lugubrious pile of sauce, meat, and cheese. This unhappy return to the body will remind them of the horrid slog that faces all of us on the way to the grave, the stultifying day-to-day torpor that follows the happy day of marriage. As their bodies fail to successfully integrate the Lasagna and they sit moaning on the toilet, they will be reminded of their own failures and of their inevitable deaths.

Q: Do you ever wake up at 2am, plant a flower, then go back to bed?

A. On first glance, this seems to be more of a statement about you than a question about me— that is, you seem to want to raise the possibility that you wake up in the middle of the night to plant flowers. However, I reflect that that interpretation is indeed a mere projection, an illusion created by my own paranoia in the face of an increasingly selfish and hostile world. I have already committed epistemic violence by closing off the mere possibility of “questions” existing in the current world, and that jaded approach occludes potential utopias in our present(s). As a result, may I say: Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

The potential for a real (or rather, Real) question (perhaps Question?) existing is a much more delicious problem to examine and explode. However, we must begin with Derrida, who points out that while questioning provides the very basis of critique and deconstruction, what can be even more exciting is what comes before the question. Each question must derive from a particular problem, a gap between Self and Other encountered in the present that brings with it an awareness of the gap between Presence and Being. It presupposes that the Other is best addressed; in fact, ALL questions are statements affirming the desire for rapport with the Other. That is to say, the content of your question is ultimately meaningless except to say, “Here I am and I see you and I desire to know you!” This desire for connection and understanding is to the highest good, and I respond, “I too see you and desire to know you!” The question is a quest-ing; you seek the wild and unknowable beyond the walls of the Self.

Your question’s dream-like phrasing highlights the absurdity of any sort of content— what would be the purpose of this question beyond beginning a dialogue? To what end would one pose this other than to bring humans face-to-face? Under normal linguistic circumstances, I have three options of response: First, I could affirm that I do in fact get up and plant bulbs at night, offering you insight into the Other. Success! Alternately, I could offer the negative, which results in the same resultant knowledge. Success! Or finally, I could respond thus: “Why do you ask?” By prompting a question from the Other, a whole new line of affirmation begins!

Q. Mid life crisis, I’m a 22 year old female?

I am still not done with school, I won’t truly get to enjoy my twenties because I’ll be spending it mainly in school. I’m still a Virgin with no boyfriend also :/

A. I am quite happy that you are already contemplating your own heroic death at the age of 44. Drawing from Gide and the rest of the French Existentialists, it is only when we truly confront the reality of our death that we can begin rejecting the constraint of social mores and take on a heroic role in our own lives. So mazel tov, you will die in 22 years, and then all will be dark and empty!!

Now that you have stared into the gaping void of the future, you can truly create yourself anew! I’m also heartened that you are rejecting gender with the evocative question mark after “female.” On the subject of punctuation, I’d like to spend some time addressing the conclusion of your un-question (perhaps this is just a brag?), where you leave your readers with a colon followed by a solidus or slash. The naïve reader might interpret it as an emoji, a half smile expressing ambivalence or unhappiness. However, digging into the possibilities of non-oral linguistic markers may open more possibilities for interpretation. First, the colon indicates that what comes after it demonstrates or illustrates the prior independent clause. As such, the reader is prepared to have some phrase or quote or list illustrate the statement “I’m still a Virgin with no boyfriend also.” You surprise the reader with the strong solidus, a mark that indicates “or,” the non-oppositional alternative. What a bold world we have entered!!!

In other words, you accept the reality of your social position while at the same time opening up the discourse to alternate interpretations, alternate ways of being! This is wise, as compulsory heterosexuality and toxic Virginity will rot your soul. Instead, you can see the next twenty-two years of your life open before you as malleable; by embracing the “OR” you can rewrite your present and your future before the cold embrace of the grave!

“Everything becomes and recurs eternally - escape is impossible! ... To endure the idea of the recurrence one needs: freedom from morality”

Particularly in a text-based medium, can anything be said to exist in the absence of text? Can the subject even be conceived unless it is documented, solidified, textualized? When I do not post, am I?

Q: Why do strawberries have no taste?

...anymore.

A: As the common saying goes, “There’s no accounting for taste.” However, that is an illusory and reactionary phrase that papers over the underlying violence and oppression of (aesthetic) taste. If we look to Pierre Bourdieu’s seminal text Distinction, taste can clearly be seen as the primary medium of class maintenance, particularly for the dominant social groups. Aesthetic choices are inherently political, since they outwardly display “faction” allegiance, as well as demonstrate the individual’s knowledge of key cultural capital. Taste can act as reactionary or revolutionary coding, giving the world an idea of one’s place within the wider culture.

Naturally, since taste is so essential to power, dominant social models have constructed “correct” forms of taste and regularly marginalize “incorrect” systems of taste. We can see this in the derision directed at hip hop, punk, and queer aesthetics prior to their adoption by consumer capitalism (see: Hebdige 1979).

If you see strawberries, perhaps they DO have an aesthetic style that operates against and outside of dominant style norms. As we have seen in the past, this opens a cultural rupture that actively challenges hegemony until the superstructure can incorporate the new stylistics. Indeed, early hip hop culture operated to distinguish from hegemonic taste as well as challenge the dominance of white supremacist notions of beauty. (Of course, contemporary mainstream hip hop has been appropriated into global capital, commercialized, and sanitized into a consumer medium, but that’s an issue that has been explored ad nauseum.)

Q: Give me an opening line for a horror story?

It doesn't have to be particularly witty or brilliant-- just a line that makes you want to read on.

Q: How to control your temper?

We all get a little angry sometimes! We’ll either vent a little bit or just get frustrated. In worse case scenarios, some will turn into The Incredible Hulk. OK, not really, but some people sure do get ANGRY!

A: Since all things can be used as a lens for all times, I will answer this question through the lens of Galenic medicine. Since “science” is only a cultural means of understanding the natural world (if such a thing can even be said to exist), we may as well use any science in our futile efforts to regulate and control the body.

Judging from the ancient Greek system of humors, temper is often a manifestation of “choleric” temperament, resulting from an excess of yellow bile. A standard treatment would be ingestion of bitter herbs and vegetables, as well as consumption of “cooling” and “moistening” agents.

If you are manifesting an excess of “yellow bile,” eat an aloe plant, I guess?

However, it must be noted that this complex of medical history shows a deeply rooted discourse that pathologizes and “treats” anger as disease in the West. Indeed, anger continues to be pathologizes by both medico- and pschyo-industrial complexes, as manifested in “anger management” programs as well as psychoactive drugs. Anger is ultimately incompatible with the dominant orders within the West that privilege submission, piety and purity. Indeed, anger is always (and always will be) a threat to hegemony. Anger leads to rebellion, so shame and placebo treatments abound to rein in our revolutionary fury.

My own advice is to interrogate the depths of your anger--is it resulting from systems of control that maintain illusory hierarchies? If so, you should probably follow the Hulk’s example. For a model, please look to the Feminist Hulk’s twitter account: https://twitter.com/feministhulk

Q: Parents said i cant drive my car?

So im 16 and i bought a car i pay the ensurance i have a job i dont need anything from my parents besides a house to live in. And they told me im not aloud to drive my car because i have bad grades in school. Can they legally tell me that?

A: Legality is a construct; where there is power, there is Law. Due to the incomplete saturation of Capitalism into society, there are still a few areas of life that contain non-economic demonstrations of power, and parentage is one such location. Regardless of civil law, you are under the heavier thumb of the Ur-Father.

I am more interested in the fact that “[ur] not aloud to drive.” Is it the sound of driving that is (metaphorically) driving your parents to distraction?? Are they simply demanding total silence, a movement that makes no noise? In itself, this is a far more effective punishment, because they are depriving you of voice, demanding an impossible task. Like Sisyphus in the Greek tradition, your release is contingent on impossibility. You are presumably “allowed” to drive, as long as it is not out loud. Your parents have engaged you in a classic double bind. You must either sacrifice movement or voice, but cannot have both.