Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 10:24:44 +1000 From: Gary MacLennan <g.maclennan-AT-qut.edu.au> Subject: BHA: The Dialectic and Documentary Theory (4 of maybe 5) Documentary Theory and the Dialectic: A Dialectical Critical Realist Approach The Avant Garde Alternatives Narcissism or the Struggle for Amour de Soi The retreat from the legacy of the Grierson can also seemingly take the form of the embrace of narcissism. There is a very interesting photograph in John Roberts - Florence Henri's 1928 self-portrait (Roberts, 1998: 56). She studied at the Bauhaus and then took up portrait photography and fashion work. This particular photograph shows her contemplating herself in the mirror. It is 1928 and the world is crashing around her into the Great Depression, yet she sits there contemplating her own image. Roberts' comment is interesting. He says 'These images of mirrors do not so much extend the everyday as a gendered space as embrace narcissism as a recoil from the everyday' (Roberts, 1998: 55). For Roberts photographs, such as Henri's, reveal that there was some negotiation of, if not opposition to, the dominant positivism that was to constitute the basis for documentary photography in the 1930s and beyond. The term 'narcissism', which Roberts employs, has irredeemably negative connotations. However we need to ask whether gestures such as Henri's are merely the self-absorbed (amour propre) or do they manifest self-esteem (amour de soi). The distinction is an important one for as Bhaskar has pointed out, 'only the empowered individual can assist or effectively solidarize with the powerless, so that amour de soi, rather than amour propre, is the true fount of all altruism (Bhaskar, 1993: 265). The autobiographical gesture in photography and documentary may then be based on a reactionary narcissism but it may also be something like a return to the Self as a way of finding healing (Bhaskar, 2000). It may indeed constitute the first step of Bhaskar's dialectic of the '7 E's'. Self-esteem ? mutual esteem (where the intra-dependency of action itself reflects both the fiduciary nature of the social bond and the reality of oppressive social relations) existential security ? ergonic efficiency ?(individual ?collective ?totalising) empowerment ? universal emancipation ? eudaimonia (Bhaskar, 1993: 365). The point we wish to stress here is that, although Brian Winston is correct to point out the complex ethical issues involved, the personal autobiographical film may not necessarily be an instance of the 'me generation' at work (Winston, 2000: 130). There is an alternative dialectic leading, as Bhaskar has shown from, amour de soi or self-esteem to the good society. The Aesthetics of Failure Paul Arthur (1993) was we believe the first theorist to attempt to encapsulate the key aspect of the new Avant Garde Documentary with the concept of the 'aesthetics of failure' (Arthur in Renov, 1993). Jon Dovey employs the term 'klutz films' to describe the same phenomena (Dovey, 200: 27-54). However we will stick with Arthur's formulation, as we feel that the use of the term klutz tends to oversimplify differences between the authorial personae created within the aesthetics of failure. Thus Nick Broomfield and Ross McIlwee both encounter failure but the failures are of a very different order, as are the personalities constructed within the film. 'Epistemic hesitation', a term analogous to the 'aesthetics of failure', has been advocated by Carl Plantinga (1997). We will return to Plantinga, but for the moment we will note that for him 'epistemic hesitation' constitutes a possible source of balance to the cognitive triumphalism of the traditional expository documentary. The essential features of the 'aesthetics of failure' are that the filmmaker is reflexive in the cinema verité mode. Thus there is much discussion and foregrounding of how the filmmaker is making a film and what his intentions are. The defining feature of the genre, though, is that the filmmaker presents himself as incompetent, and struggling to keep the film project on track. We have chosen to underline the gender implications of this new documentary genre, because although, as Arthur and Dovey both argue, it represents the erosion of the white male as subject, the white male remains centre stage - troubled, incompetent, bumbling etc but nevertheless centre stage. Indeed it is debatable to what extent the aesthetics of failure represents an avenue of expression for the female filmmaker. Within patriarchy the male master can play at being incompetent but no such license is extended to the female slave who must always strive to prove herself in a male dominated world. Within the aesthetics of failure paradigm there are two great maîtres - Michael Moore and Ross McIlwee. In many ways people have not yet come to terms with what their work signifies. McIlwee, in our opinion, is the greater artist, but Moore is a very accomplished filmmaker. His Roger and Me is widely acknowledged as a classic. Moore is also more explicitly political than McIlwee. But it is not at all clearly understood what the nature of his politics is. They are classically liberal communalist and they go back to John Dewey not Karl Marx. The whole thrust of his art is to expel the rich and the powerfully from the community. He attempts to demonstrates over and over again that they are un-American. At the other end of the pole from this liberal communalism is McIlwee who represents the individual who will not conform, who in the face of a triumphalist culture built round 'can do will do', offers us his personal failures. Plantinga & Epistemic Hesitation It is the absence of a critical-realist philosophy of science that handicaps Plantinga in his attempt to refute the cognitive triumphalism of what he terms the 'formal voice'. Likewise his attack on postmodernist scepticism, which lies behind the concept of the open voice, is weakened because he does not have a theory which will locate the proper place for epistemic relativism or what he terms ‘epistemic hesitation’ (Plantinga, 1997: 118). It is this that is behind his mistaken contrast between explanation and exploration. Plantinga does not see that if we recognise that the world is stratified then all explanation is like exploration. Epistemic relativism is not an optional extra. It is guaranteed by the fact that ‘all beliefs are socially produced, so that all knowledge is transient, and neither truth-values nor criteria for rationality exist outside historical time’ (Bhaskar, 1979: 73). Epistemic relativism then is the very essence of our epistemological endeavours. It is however most important to understand that epistemic relativism does not preclude ontological realism. Reality exists and is stratified. Neither should we abandon the notion of judgemental rationality. We do have good reasons for preferring one explanation to another. We would like to say a further word about Plantinga’s notion of ‘epistemic hesitation’. This can be usefully compared with Paul Arthur’s notion of the ‘aesthetics of failure’ and regarded primarily as a psychological and sociological phenomenon (Arthur, 1993: 16-34). At one level it is true that this hesitation, doubt or uncertainty about the epistemological project is caused by the collapse of the certainties of positivism. There is, though, a social/political moment as well. We locate this in the failure of the Left of 1966-72 to bring about substantial social change. This failure has seen in turn the continued triumph of the dominant elites. In terms of the Bhaskarian dialectic we are dealing with problems at 4D - the level of agency. Here the 'de-agentification of reality' has given risen to, what Bhaskar terms the 'world historical problem of agency', where there is an apparent absence of 'the deep totalizing conveyors of the dialectic of freedom' (Bhaskar, 1993: 316). So great are the problems that arguably we are at a stage where the only alternative source of opposition is to fetishize indeterminacy and so undermine the categories that underpin the status quo. In other words the function of the ‘aesthetics of failure’ and 'epistemic hesitation' is to negate all epistemic certainty. However this is at best a holding operation and it is interesting to note that, as Plantinga points out, there is a revival of documentaries, which have a ‘formal voice’ in that they attempt to explain reality. It is our contention that we should reject epistemic hesitation as an end in itself. Firstly on the grounds that it confuses the notion of epistemic relativism and also that it denies the possibility of achieving truth as alethia or the reason for things. Our second reason for rejecting ‘epistemic hesitation’ is that explanation is essential to emancipation. We must understand the world before we can change it. Moreover, indeterminacy by itself does not suffice to advance freedom. For that something must be negated. (From: A Paper prepared for the IACR-Conference "Debating Realisms" Roskilde University Denmark, 17-19 August 2001 Gary MacLennan John Hookham Queensland University of Technology Brisbane Qld Australia) Draft Only --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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