ix 09/19

The important lesson learned in the class for the above date is the utilization of a theorist(s) and how to utilize said theorist as lens through which certain objects are viewed. For the first exercise we viewed a picture of McDonald’s, though this is not just an easy image of the golden arches, and the subgroups were able to view the image through Benjamin’s and/or Adorno’s eyes.

This was an important exercise that demonstrated, like the class we had downtown after Jencks, how to not only identify any new concept/ideas we may have learned from the scriptures, but also how to incorporate it into our interpretation of the world around us, forcing us, the viewer, to not remain complacent and see similar images/pictures with not only new “eyes” in general but Adorno’s and Benjamin’s eyes in particular.

The lesson even applied to off hand, innocuous seeming everyday comments such as “she looks like a model.” A comment that, if heard, one would immediately and impulsively answer, “yes, I agree” or “no, I don’t agree,” rather than delve on what the phrase is actually implying and what, by participating in the consenting or the dissenting, we are implicitly and blindly acquiescing, if not actively perpetuating, the point of view of a certain perspectival consciousness one may not necessarily agree with. In other words, we can no longer view words and/or statements the same way ever again, nor can we sit idly by and make no commentary on such things because to make “no commentary” is to make one.