SURFACES AND GENDER
(Summary: Whether the twenty-first century becomes the “Century of the Woman” as some have predicted, there is no doubt that the influence of women in the culture has increased. This influence is not so much explicit, overt, or articulated as in political ideas or the structure of institutions as it is seen — or sensed — in the plethora of surfaces in contemporary culture. Surfaces are best, most relevantly understood, now in the early decades of the twenty-first century in the way fashion is understood — i. e., as phenomena that is superfluous which nonetheless says a great deal about much in the culture from commerce to political campaigning to celebrity. This essay sheds light on the ascendancy of the fashion style by seeing how Bill Clinton’s attempted to cover-up his affair with Monica Lewinsky as an example of the male relation with surfaces in the culture gave way over following years from varied cultural developments to the prevalence of fashion ordinarily associated with woman not as metaphor for the nature of the environment and processes of contemporary culture, but as reality individuals and organizations were required to reckon with to represent themselves and to communicate and interact with others.)
(Introductory note: Though written more than ten years ago about 2002, this essay of social critique is still relevant in that it delves into reasons for the growth of the influence of female characteristics largely through the spread of the “fashion style” into all significant areas of the culture, from child-rearing to politics, from marketing to identity as reflected in chosen courses for desired fulfillment. Surfaces are no longer practically exclusively commandeered and explained by men, but have been greatly affected by women’s sensibilities. In my book “The Refuge of Surfaces — A Poetics of Surfaces and the Postmodern Odyssey,” I range more widely on this topic of surfaces in contemporary culture. This essay begins with reference to the French philosopher Baudrillard’s stages of the image. Baudrillard, like McLuhan, has an incomparably informative and relevant grasp of imagery in modern culture.)
- Baudrillard’s Stages of Images and the Disrobing of Bill Clinton
Some social historians have said that the twenty-first century will be the “Century of the Woman.” Perhaps. If so, one main reason for this will be the place surfaces have come to assume in the culture. There is no better or more pertinent insight into surfaces in terms of the subject “image” than the one by the French philosopher/cultural critic Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007). Analyses and assessment of the image throughout modern Western society including the media, psychology, consumerism, politics, and warfare was Baudrillard’s preoccupation in his many writings. His 1981 work “Simulacra and Simulation” (translated into English in 1994) especially is pertinent in summarizing his insightful, original, and influential analysis of images (i. e., imagery, surfaces) in contemporary Western society; which analysis is applied to varied specific traditional and historical areas of the society (e. g., politics) and conditions and events arising in the course of his career (e. g., the Iraq War following 9/11) In “Simulacra and Simulation,” Baudrillard introduces the idea that surfaces do change in history and specifies the stages of their change.
Baudrillard specifies four stages of the image; which in this essay “Gender and Surfaces” is synonymous with surfaces meaning generally imagery. The four stages of the image are: (1) it is the reflection of a profound reality; (2) it masks and denatures a profound reality; (3) it masks the absence of a profound reality; (4) it has no relation to any reality whatsoever: it is its own pure simulacrum. This last stage is the stage relating to postmodernism. At the time Baudrillard wrote this summarization, this fourth state did relate to the standing of surfaces. But the nature of surfaces has changed in the culture, as Baudrillard’s novel, elucidating, and expansive summarization attested they would. Baudrillard would not have intended to make the claim that surfaces are static; surely he would not have meant for anyone to believe that he was assuming that the four-part summarization he rendered encapsulated the evolution of surfaces for all time.
Baudrillard’s summarization engendered the notion — the true notion — that surfaces have an organic quality; and that like everything else in society — beliefs, clothing, political systems, ways of preparing and cooking food, raising children, entertainment — surfaces change in the course of history. And as with respect to everything else, society changes to adapt to and to try to make sense of the changes in surfaces. In the postmodern time to which Baudrillard’s fourth stage referred to, society tried to adapt to and make sense of the latest stage of surfaces by an increased interest in semantics and semiology; respectively the study of meaning as reflected in language and the study of signs. The evaluation of celebrity, the fashioning of lifestyles, and the influence of entertainment were other changes in society relating to the changes in surfaces.
In this time of postmodernism, as the reliability of surfaces as indications of quality or aspects of nature or as standings or focuses for understanding or knowledge faded, society tried to make sense of surfaces by understanding the historical, political, social, and personal processes and motives which went into them and — which was related to this — understanding the arbitrariness of surfaces. With the fading — the erasure — of the reliability of surfaces in these other areas, their reliability also faded with respect to morality. Although surfaces never were a completely reliable referent for morality — any more than they were for the substance of historical, political, social, or political matters — surfaces, as in these other areas, did reflect a moral tradition and perspective. To a degree, the surfaces confirmed it, and even sustained it. A businessman’s suit signified, and signaled, involvement with and acceptance of certain commercial activities and values. Bohemian attire signified, and signaled, attachment to certain aesthetic and libertine values and activities. The prim clothing of an upper middle-class married woman indicated general conformity to bourgeois values, behavior, and tastes.
In postmodernism, however, codes faded away along with all other primary aspects of society. An overview of the political career of Bill Clinton especially as president and during this time, regard of him and judgements about him relating to the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal evidences changes in social codes, or norms. The degree to which they had faded was exemplified in instances by Bill Clinton in his campaign for president in the early 1990s. Several times he was photographed in shorts looking like underwear. The fact that one couldn’t tell if he was in his underwear or not makes the point anyway. The point is that unlike other presidential candidates, Clinton had no compunction about being in shorts that could easily be mistaken for underwear in a photograph which would be seen by millions of prospective voters. While presidential candidates are often photographed in casual clothing or sports wear in informal moments to identify with the mass of the voters, Clinton’s being photographed in ambiguous lower clothing went beyond this practice. Clinton’s being photographed in shorts virtually underwear signified to the public that clothing does not have anything telling to do with the person he is or the place he would assume or role he would create if he were elected.
Clinton deconstructed the familiar symbolisms of presidential candidates regarding attire. He did not deconstruct the symbolisms so as to diminish, falsify, or negate them. He deconstructed them so as to exceed them, perhaps even transcend them. By reducing his attire to the minimum, Clinton implied- — almost promised — that he would be more of a president than any previous president. Such was the degree of the erasure of surfaces at the time Clinton was running for president that the large majority of the public sensed what was being signified by Clinton and responded with approval of it.
The Clinton presidency fulfilled the implications of the photographs. The Clinton “style” manifested the manner of leadership and the qualities of personality inhering in the photographs of Clinton in his shorts/virtual underwear. The stripping away of the layers of clothing was not an ideal, minimalist impulse to present the essential self. Anomalously, but not inexplicably, Clinton’s movement to bare himself — hardly more than a gesture — was not paring away of outer and supposedly extraneous, obfuscating, and sometimes false social and personal paraphernalia. Though it could seem to be this, it was actually the impulse and bravado of exhibitionism. Clinton’s stripping away of his outer clothing was not a symbolic movement to reject or to transcend ostentation, but was a manifestation of his megalomania,or narcissism. Although taken as being within the framework of the politician signifying his folksiness, after years of following Clinton’s behavior as president, especially in the maze of the Lewinsky business, Clinton’s posing in such garb can be seen as illuminating the anomalies, the gravitational anomalies, of the man. The public has yet to make much sense of these anomalies. As its reaction to the Lewinsky business demonstrated, not being able to make much sense of Clinton’s anomalies, the public was bemused by his behavior. But understanding or judgment is beside the point with respect to Clinton’s anomalies. What is most noticeable and significant about them in relation to American politics and society is their gravitational quality. Clinton’s anomalies exerted a pull on him which limited his potential and hamstrung his talents. They also exerted an attraction on a significant proportion of Americans so that Clinton was twice elected president and survived the crisis of the Lewinsky scandal.
2. Tripped Up by Imagery
The anomalies bound in with Clinton’s manifesting his megalomania in baring himself down to near or virtual underwear tokens the vanishing of the reliability of surfaces; which vanishing is a chief characteristic of postmodernism. By the time of Clinton’s candidacy and presidency, this vanishing was almost complete. In this social environment, it is the showmen who rise to the surface of society. Clinton was the P. T. Barnum of American politics of the last decade of the twentieth century, probably the plateau of postmodernism. Clinton was able to maintain his popularity and create the impression that he was offering something substantial and progressing with an agenda by making persons feel good. Clinton made persons feel good differently than Reagan did. Reagan made people feel good about America and being Americans. Although this was not calculated, but was a part of Reagan’s nature, it had a role in engendering the commitment and endurance to wear down the Soviet Union. With the Berlin Wall having fallen and the Soviet Union having been broken up by the time Clinton became president, Clinton’s making persons feel good had no such political or ideological use. Clinton made persons feel good about themselves. Being able to make persons feel good about themselves made Clinton feel good about himself. And Clinton being able to make persons feel good about themselves made persons feel good about Clinton. This incestuous interplay typified the narcissism which was an attribute of the plateau of postmodernism. The interplay and its effects exemplify the “jouissance” or “frisson” of fulfilled postmodernism.
Clinton’s impulse to bare all to signify his authenticity and connections with average persons ran aground on its limitations with the Monica Lewinsky scandal, however. The scandal grew not only out of Clinton’s insatiable desire for women to feed his megalomania, but also from his dismissal of surfaces. Clinton’s megalomania was such that he thought he was superior to surfaces — at least until the Lewinsky affair threatened to be made public. If Clinton had a different appreciation for surfaces, at least a sort of respect for them, he probably would not have gotten himself into such a situation. But with his attitude that he was superior to surfaces, or at least could always control them to his advantage, Clinton laid the groundwork for the scandal by disregarding the symbolism attached to the White House and the Oval Office. Clinton even felt himself superior to these images. With no sense of history, precedent, decorum, or legacy, Clinton began and became more deeply involved in the Lewinsky affair. Investigations into his alleged behavior were given their passion and persistence because of the surroundings in which the affair took place.
While in postmodern America, surfaces had become largely emptied of meaning, continuity, and stability, there was in the general public and more fatefully for Clinton among certain prosecutors, politicians, and journalists an instinctual regard for surfaces; in particular, a regard for historical imagery of American democracy. While Clinton underwent a rough, embarrassing time, in the end it was the public’s mood, not the passions of the prosecutors and opposition of the politicians that was decisive in the outcome of not removing Clinton from office for sullying major, central images of American life. The public was more curious about the matter for what it would say about Clinton’s personality than as a legal prosecution or possible impeachable misconduct. Clinton’s disregard of surfaces in the Lewinsky affair gave it a certain peculiarity the public tried to fathom. The imagery involved in the affair aroused the public to be interested it it; but this interest was only curiosity and amusement. The public still had some instinctual concern about surfaces. But it was faint.
Although Clinton’s behavior disregarding major images of American life did not arouse the moral indignation to put him out of office, that the public was aroused in the way that it was — i. e., curiosity and amusement — indicates there was a residual — though diffuse and random — sense of moral displeasure. Unreliable, discontinuous, and unstable as they had become, surfaces, at least some surfaces, retained a moral quotient; though it was much diminished from what it had been in previous eras. Clinton could not disregard all surfaces; there were still a few he was subject to.
3. Testosterone and Surfaces
Clinton’s behavior as the Lewinsky affair became known piece by piece evidences a distinctly male relationship with surfaces. More concerned with practicalities and more oriented toward the public sphere (as in politics, war, and sports, for example) men have a more objective appreciation of surfaces. In general, men also have more experience with surfaces in the public sphere and more resources to control them. It was certainly the case with Clinton that he had vast resources to try to control surfaces to make it appear he was not sexually involved with Monica Lewinsky. This is what is meant by saying that men have a more objective appreciation of surfaces — namely, that men feel they can control them. The more power a man has, the more he feels he can control surfaces.
This feeling of males that they can control surfaces arising out of their greater experience in public life, quicker sense of practicality, interest in mechanics, position of power relative to women, and accessibility to a wider range of resources has repercussions for men’s hold on morality, or for morality’s hold on men as it might be better put. Given this attribute of men, it is not surprising that the large proportion of crime is committed by men; and in relation to this, it is not surprising that nearly all murders and assaults and other violent crime is committed by men. A fundamental reason for this is that in having a relatively objective appreciation of surfaces, men are able to cast them aside more readily from anger, erotic stimulations, covetousness, greed, and any number of other impulses or emotions. Men are not so inhibited by surfaces. With regard to violent crime, men entirely cast off surfaces to unleash and reveal the raw, feral self. But this relatively objective appreciation of surfaces is seen not only in men committing the large proportion of crime, especially violent crime. It is also seen in the mechanics and machinations of the everyday public world, namely, the world of business and politics. The frauds of varying scales, the grandiose promises and visions of politicians, the half-truths, the ready bonhomie, the forming of individuals as consumers, clients, and voters, the hegemony of mercantilism, and lately — the early years of the twenty-first century — the passion for redemption and the search for “closure” are characteristic of a culture reflecting mostly the male regard and relationship with surfaces. There is little sympathy, regeneration (redemption is not regeneration), nurturing, or other processes and relatively organic and intimate relationships and states reflecting the female relationship with surfaces.
The male regard of and relationship with surfaces in general gives men a readier practical sense and abilities. Postmodernism, however, is a time when the male regard of and relationship with surfaces has taken hold of public, private, and personal life to an extent and strength it never had before; but the ordinarily corresponding practical sense and abilities had been abandoned or disabled. Hence, the idea that history has come to an end, the deadlock in Congress, the disinterest in basics in education, the allure of size and spectacle, the high divorce rate, and other aspects of postmodern life. The sense of practicality has been mutated so that it is now a part of the sense of materiality, augmenting it. Practical ability has been changed so that it is now an element in a campaign of acquisition or dominance. The sense of proportion and as a part of this, the sense of limits going along with practicality because of its orientation to the physical world and familiarity with human resources (e. g., hands) and capabilities has been lost. With the loss of the practical sense, the objects and images of the world are no longer seen as proportionings of it for use by persons. With the loss of the practical sense by which the objects and images of the world acquired a certain grounding because of the sense of proportion going with this sense the objects and images came to be seen as indices or reflections, and inducements, of incomparably, infinitely, better versions of these, as in the way Plato’s Forms are the ideals of and affirmations of objects and experiences of them.
While the loss of the connection between practicality and surfaces accounted for Clinton heedlessly getting himself into the position of having a sordid, foolish affair with a young woman in the Oval office and adjacent rooms, when his behavior was threatened with exposure, Clinton’s male regard of and relationship with surfaces came into play. While surfaces had come to be concerned primarily with imagery and entertainment, they had not entirely lost their association with morality. Clinton endeavored to control and deploy surfaces to keep hidden his heedless affair. With his relatively objective male relationship with surfaces, Clinton believed he could control the surfaces — e. g., the images, the news articles, the interpretations, the judgments — of the public in his favor. Ultimately Clinton was unable to do this to the point where his behavior remained permanently unknown by the public. But the systematic way Clinton was able to do this and the length of time he was able to demonstrate the characteristic male relationship with surfaces. The male relatively objective relationship with surfaces is important with respect to possibility and hope; but is is also instrumental in fraud and dehumanization. Both facets of the male relationship with surfaces were evident with Clinton at different times in his campaign for president and his presidency.
4. Fashion as Agency and End
The different relationship to surfaces between men and women leads to different behavior. One other type of behavior attached to men besides those in the area of crime, politics, and business is that of the “con.” “Con artist” is a term sometime used, but the term “con man” is more familiar. In any event, the term “con woman” is rarely used. That there is no such cultural figure of a “con woman” as there is of a “con man” testifies to different grounds for behavior between men and women; which grounds relate to the different regards of surfaces between men and women. The closest female behavior to that of the flimflam, contrived trust, and empty promises of the con man would be seduction. Seduction is actually a radically different kind of behavior; but it can be compared to the behavior of the con man to shed light on the different behavior. Except in rare cases, women are not cons because they do not have the objective relationship to surfaces that men do. Women would not be prompted to deploy surfaces and to engage in the absolutely deceptive acting Clinton did in the Lewinsky matter. Nor are women naturally prompted to contrive thoroughly fraudulent scenarios for personal gain as the con man does. Because of their objective relationship to surfaces, men are able to separate themselves from them. Thus men are able to fabricate surfaces that are hollow. The Potemkin village exemplifies the male relationship with surfaces.
It is because of their objective relationship with surfaces that men can fabricate surfaces that are perfectly hollow, perfectly false. This is different from ambiguity inhering in surfaces. The relationship of women with surfaces coming closest to this characteristic of men’s relationship with surfaces that can result in a Potemkin village is fashion. The Potemkin village and fashion can be compared because there is a certain apparent gap between the surfaces and some reality. The comparison goes only so far, however; and this is not far at all. For with fashion, the gap between an individual and the surfaces is patent. Fashion is meant to attract attention, not to deceive. Fashion is playful, superfluous, sometimes seductive. The Potemkin village, by contrast, is serious, obsessively serious. It is meant to convince, not seduce; to indoctrinate, not enliven with play.
Some social historians predict that the twenty-first century will be the century of the woman because of the place fashion has come to have in the culture. Fashion has become a style affecting all areas of the culture; as business has, but with different effects. Whereas the movement of business into nearly every area of the culture has resulted in the commercialization of practically everything, the move of fashion into all areas has resulted in a separation between persons and surfaces. Irony, the desire for celebrity, lifestyles as a choice, and avatars individuals devise for social media and online gaming are only a few examples of the affects of fashion.
This fashion style has affected even a majority of men. Although Clinton’s behavior evidenced for all the world that many men continue to be opportunistic regarding sex, Clinton’s affinity with Hollywood, his performance in televised town meetings to demonstrate his connection to the public and empathy with their concerns, and also his gestures such as biting his lip to signify his being affected by something are symptomatic of the prevailing fashion style. Another instance of the effects of this style on men is the popularity of periodicals for men about their looks. These periodicals resemble nothing so much as the magazines for teen girls on their dating problems, concerns over their looks, and how to be attractive to the opposite sex.
The reasons or causes of the embrace of the fashion style have not been nearly as much analyzed as the reasons and causes of the movement of business into all areas of the culture. The primary reason for this is that the movement of business is familiar and plain — namely, the allure of profits, which in many cases is no different from elemental greed. The presence and effects of greed require little explanation. In somewhat the same respect, the presence, attraction, and effects of fashion require little explanation. These are involved in materialism, which is familiar and plain. However, the fashion style, as it is bound in with art, psychology, culture, and even to some extent with the concern over death, is not so easily comprehended as the desire for profit or the characteristic of greed. In relation to this, the embrace of the fashion style is not as straightforward or predictable as the movement of business into all areas of the culture. The predominance of business could have been predicted with the growth of mercantilism in Western culture and the rise of the bourgeoisie and the secularization of culture coming about from this. But the embrace of the fashion style, and the depth and persistence of the embrace, could not have been predicted from any aspects or qualities of Western culture, or any combination of aspects or qualities. The fashion style is not essentially an extension or even an exponential factor of the secularization; although the fashion style is related to this. Neither is the fashion style a vehicle for the mercantilism to move into all facets of the culture, to disguise it or make it more palatable for example. Other forms of materialism, vanity, and one-upmanship are sufficient enough for the movement of materialism. Nor can the embrace of fashion be attributed mainly to the middling tastes and satisfactions of the bourgeoisie. This class had long been satisfied with trinkets, mere show, and needless innovation. The embrace of the fashion style actually requires more of this dominant class than had been customary for it. The embrace of the fashion style is more than an evolution of the tastes and wit of the bourgeoisie.
The embrace of the fashion style has been for the most part treated as one of the cultural phenomena of postmodernism. For the most part, the style has been presented as one other instance of the semiotics, disappearance of an authentic self, and imagery of postmodernism. But a study of the embrace of the fashion style on its own brings to light the extent to which the entire culture has taken on the historic condition of women.
Postmodern is a new state of Western culture not basically because of its oblique, contorted, or abstracted relationship with modernism. Postmodernism is a new and generally incomprehensible, baffling, state of the culture because it is a state that has historically been the state of women in the culture. Patriarchy is no longer the determinative condition of the culture; although because of its millennial longevity and its strength, patriarchy continues to be the framework for perception, understanding, and analysis. Postmodernism is incomprehensible, baffling, because a patriarchal framework is being used to try to understand and explain what has become an essentially feministic, or a womanistic, culture. The patriarchal perspective is no more relevant to grasping the reality of the culture which is at this time known as postmodernism than a stereotypical male can grasp the moods of a woman in pregnancy, the pleasure of lace, or the enthusiasm for fashion.
From the patriarchal perspective, women are attracted to fashion because they are frivolous. Hence, this time of postmodernism where the fashion style has affected all areas of the culture is frivolous. “Frivolous” whether applied to women or to postmodern culture is descriptive, however. It is not analytical. While women may indeed be frivolous (as men may indeed be insincere), this is not an entire explanation for why they embrace fashion. It is not even a very useful explanation; and it surely is not a serious explanation. Frivolous is men’s description for women with respect to their embrace of and interest in fashion because this is the way men want to see women. Men want so see women as frivolous perhaps to liven up their own lives; also, seeing women as frivolous is a way by which men can give meaning to their own position and justify reflexive assertions of their power. Seeing women as frivolous is also a form of denial on the part of men that women have developed natures or substantive thoughts. Seeing postmodernism mainly as frivolous is similarly a form of denial. In this denial, men can deny that their position has changed. This is undeniable, however. The intensified interest in appearance by many, mostly younger men, the unquestioned acceptance that this is natural, and the diminution of the place of politics are some indications of the change.
What is informative about the embrace of fashion with respect to contemporary culture is not that fashion tokens frivolity, but an answer to the question why has the culture embraced fashion? The culture has embraced fashion for the reasons that women have historically embraced fashion. This is not because the culture became frivolous. The culture embraced the fashion style because the conditions in which the embrace of fashion is likely to occur came to predominate the culture. These conditions are those which have historically been the conditions of women.
An exploration of how and why the conditions of women came to prevail in the culture would require a fairly lengthy and involved analysis of the course of the past few decades. How and why the conditions came about is not the interest of this essay, however. The conditions that had been confined to women, but which have come to prevail in contemporary culture can nonetheless be identified for the purpose of offering a comprehension of the culture.
The most significant, characteristic condition historically relating to women is the absence of power. In postmodernism, this is often referred to in terms of absence or erasure. But such absence or erasure has its sense only with the assumptions of patriarchy. Women are accustomed to the absence or erasure of states, circumstances, or concepts as characterizing their situation. The absence or erasure of the subject, the body politic, the ideals of modernism, the nation-state, and also power is a condition women are accustomed to. The absence or erasure of these has been women’s condition historically.
4. Domesticity as the Absence of Outward, Formative Power
Women’s historical condition has not been considered in terms of absence or erasure not only because patriarchy has been the source for the perspective and methodology for cultural, psychological, gender, etc., analysis, but also because the circumstances of absence or erasure in the lives of women has been seen as domesticity. Domesticity was seen as being a positive, meaningful condition proper to the female sex. As business and politics were proper to men, domesticity was proper to women. Domesticity does have its particular, substantive, and valuable aspects; but an essential aspect of it is the absence of power as this is regarded in the worlds of public affairs — business, politics, and military activities.
The erasure or absence of the nation-state has not yet been regarded as resulting in a condition of domesticity, as ensuing in the condition of domesticity virtually by default. As the nation-state was a concept and a historical and political formation bound in with patriarchy, the diminishment of it in postmodernism has been seen as an erasure or absence of it. Most political scientists, sociologists, philosophers, historians, and social critics continue to remark on the diminishment of the nation-state rather than comprehend or even begin to comprehend to a relevant or illuminating degree conditions or circumstances that have replaced it. Their perspectives, analyses, and theories are pervaded by the erasure or absence.
The erasure or absence of the nation-state is but another — a prime — phenomenon of the absence, or the erasure, of power. This absence of power is both a cause and an effect of postmodernism. With respect to the nation-state, the process of the diminution of power became concerted with the end of the Cold War. The United States and its allies no longer needed the political, diplomatic, and military power they had while working to contain the worldwide designs of the Soviet Union with its Communist ideology. But the political, diplomatic, and military power of the United States and the Western nations was diminishing even before the end of the Cold War accelerated the this. The affluence, growing heterogeneity, influence of popular culture, and anti-intellectualism along with the self-centeredness approaching narcissism of the younger generation of the Sixties were all having a part in the erasure of power. None of these individually or in any combination brought about the circumstance resembling domesticity replacing the power involved in patriarchy by default. Not even feminism brought about this condition because feminism, too, was concerned mostly with power. The feminists (e. g., Hillary Clinton, Gloria Steinhem) wanted the power that men had, not only for themselves, but for other women too. This patriarchal power does not go with domesticity, however. Domesticity is the absence of this power; although this is not its only quality.
6. Decentering and the Increase in Female Qualities
“Decentered” is another term relating to postmodern culture. This term, this condition, is inter-related to the erasure or absence of power. Concomitant with the erasure of power is the erosion or dissolution of the center that was the locus of the power. As power is a concentration of capabilities, potential, status, and other elements, it necessarily forms a center. There is no such quality as power without a center. The erasure of power was a process of decentering. The erasure, or disappearance, of self was a process of decentering. Deconstruction is decentering, which is not the same as destruction. As decentering is inter-related with the absence of power, women are familiar with it as a circumstance. Like the diminution of the nation-state is seen primarily as a symptom of the absence of power because of the dominance of patriarchy, so is what is decentered seen as the absence of a self because of the dominance of patriarchy.
The self was seen as a center; a self implied some degree of power. If there is no power, there is no self. But the qualities, potentials, yearnings, dreams, etc., which had been concentrated in a self and in effect were power do not evanesce with the erasure of power. If they did, the nation-state or person undergoing the erasure of power would dissipate; and this is not the case. What happens is that the person, or the nation-state, becomes decentered. Instead of being like a solar system with the sun at its center whose gravity and energy hold the system together and are the source of its life, the person, or the nation-state, becomes like a galaxy with multiple sources of gravity and energy. This metaphor of self is familiar to women. Women have stereotypically been called the “fair sex” or the “weaker sex” because of the dominance of patriarchy. They were called this, especially in the Victorian era, because men such as psychologists, physicians, social critics, and writers did not regard women as having a self that was centered. Women did not have a center which was a self because they had no power; their condition of domesticity did not require power. Women were sheltered by the power of men. Women tended to children, which was not seen as an exercise of power; and they made life comfortable for men. Women were decentered. This has been a condition for them not only in the Victorian era. The decentering that is an attribute of postmodernism is a condition women have been accustomed throughout Western history. It is another phenomenon of postmodernism, along with the fashion style, indicating that it is the time when the historic conditions of women have become the general conditions of society.
The fashion style is the style going with decentering. The fashion style is the style going with the media, entertainment, celebrity, waning of power centers, lifestyles, multiculturalism, and the various erasures and absences of the time of postmodernism. The fashion style is the style of Bill Clinton as candidate and president. Over the past couple of decades, the fashion style has evolved from being an alternate to conformist styles and being a manner of contingency by which individuals tendered their presence and formulated relationships to become the norm for human affairs. Today, the fashion style is not bound with individuals, but is also the style of politics, education, business, and other institutionalized and generic areas of culture.
The fashion style is the style historically relating to women. Bill Clinton was a politician who represented and practiced this style. His continued acceptance despite what his detractors saw as his absence of a political identity and political convictions—which is another way of saying he lacked a center—and through the Lewinsky scandal is attributable to the coincidence between him and the majority of the public in relation to the fashion style coming to prevail in the society. The difficulties President George Bush recurringly had in connecting to the American public as well as the leaders, media, and public of traditional partners of the U. S. is attributable to his personality and style of communication not coinciding with the fashion style. Bush is not adept at working according to the conditions of decentralization, multiculturalism, the entertainment metaphor, imagery, and other aspects of the fashion style.
The fashion style is essentially affective. It is not authoritarian; nor is it hegemonic or duplicitous. The affective manner can be seen as the quintessence of behavior in the ambience of freedom; although the fashion style is not necessarily the highest mode or the end point of democracy. The highest point and perhaps the end point of democracy will not be reached until the confusions, uncertainties, ambivalences, and fears inhering in and reflected by the fashion style are resolved. Although a resolution cannot be predicted, it would entail the condition where surfaces were both contingent and communicative. The source of this would be an ethic where surfaces would not be employed for a Potemkin village, but rather in the way of overtures, disclosures, and possibly at some point, affirmations. In such conditions, surfaces would not be manifestations of will, but membranes of desire, hope, and possibly at some point, faith.
At this point in the evolution of Western culture, the fashion style cannot be negated or supplanted. Western culture is now too complex, too interrelated with other cultures, too heterogeneous, too open. Nor can the fashion style be transcended, for the fashion style is itself a transcendence. The confusions, etc. of the fashion style can only be resolved; though this does not mean they necessarily will be resolved. But in either event — the continuing instability attendant with the fashion style unresolved or the resolution of this — female organic comprehension of things with the contingency (which is really the possibility of growth) and female behavior will continue to increasingly affect the culture.
In the twenty-first century, women are likely to in general come to have a greater visible presence in public affairs. And more women are likely to fill higher positions in politics, business, education, and other institutionalized areas of society; as envisioned in the idea that the twenty-first century is going to be the “Century of Woman.”But this is not the most significant development relating to the prediction. Nor is it the development which will have the most significant cultural effects.
The twenty-first century will be the century of the woman because of the cultural conditions bundled into the concept postmodernism. Foremost among these are the rise of the fashion style, the diminution of power, decentering, communication by imagery, and the attenuation of self. All of these are conditions that have historically been a part of the lives of women. The main reason postmodernism seems so baffling, errant, disturbing, or alarming depending on the standpoint and the interests of the observer is that for the most part so far, postmodernism has been read and evaluated according to overt or implicit patriarchal perspectives and methodologies. With the dissolution or supersession of the patriarchal mindset, postmodernism takes on a degree of sense. It does not become wholly coherent or self-evident. It does not take on the sense that history or politics or social realities and procedures have. But it at least takes on the sense of personality or art.
Moving from patriarchy as a means for comprehension does not lead naturally or intellectually to adopting any feminist or even feminine means for comprehension or values. This would result in a skewering of a comprehension of postmodernism mirroring the skewering from patriarchy. What moving from patriarchy would bring would be a opening to the central vital aspects of life and related attentiveness to these. This movement is already happening to some extent with the interest in biology and the application of it to other areas of society. This interest in areas of individuals and social life through the lens of biology is evident in the keen interest in health to quirky, eccentric, interests such as whether animals have souls. Environmentalism, too, is largely a field involving biology.
Nurture will not replace imperialism and authoritarianism. This would be a supplanting of the patriarchal mode by the feministic mode. Patriarchy will not lose its energy or its motives to the degree that a feministic mode will dominate. But the weakening of the patriarchal mode along with the continued growth of a more visible, influential, and accepted female mode will generate ambivalences by which new cultural forms will be wrought.
(Endnote: Since this essay was written — though never published — about 2002 when reflecting on Bill Clinton’s Monica Lewinsky troubles, the way he tried to manage them (i. e., by covering the affair up mostly by control of the media), and the public’s reaction to the affair while these were not so far in the past, the “fashion style” as discussed in the essay has become more prevalent and thus more familiar. The evolution and effects of this style have not ended however. The current interest in design (as of early 2015) is seen as the subsequent step of the evolution of the fashion style. This interest in design is the movement of the sensibilities and psychology of the fashion style from interest primarily in individuals with respect to appearance and image to objects as these entail imagery and are integral to tasks and processes as these shape environment including its quality.)
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