Proposal for Ph



Ph.D. General Examinations

Contextual Area Exam (Prof. Judith Donath, Examiner)

Follow-up Questions and Answers

Xinyu Hugo Liu

Submitted October, 2004

Follow-up Questions

1) "In Fashion, Culture, and Identity, Davis (1994) argues that liminality can be manipulated to a signaller's advantage through "disingenuous mistakes," (p. 66) such as the act of purposefully forgetting a button on a shirt or forgetting to shave; these mistakes add a "rough around the edges" genuineness to a sartorial ensemble leading to higher quality signalling. "

Can you explain how and why this would lead to higher quality signaling?

Also, is patina universally difficult to perceive or only difficult for the uninitiated?  What are the implications of each of these possibilities for its value as a signal?

2) "The discrepancy between theatre and social interaction is that while theatre is pre-scripted, social agents in real life have to make choices."

Another difference is the willing suspension of disbelief that people bring to the theatre.  Would Goffman say that a similar suspension occurs in real world interactions or is this a place where the metaphor does not hold?

3) "Davis continues to structuralize fashion until his theory takes a breathtaking turn toward the end of the work. He supplants the familiar structuralist ground with a more postmodern, late-capitalist theory of ideal markets: "

Is this different than saying that there are multiple hierarchies in which fashion operates (which is certainly McCracken's claim in "Plenitude")?  If so, what is the difference and why did Davis change to another model rather than go with an essentially the same, though multiple, model?  If not, what is the difference?

4) Simmel, as you point out, fundamentally believed in a coherent core self, but one that was only known to others in fragments.  McCracken postulated "the Diderot effect" by which people were induced to possess sets of things that have a thematic/stylistic/cultural unity.  How does this related to a notion of "gestalt"?  To the how we deal with anomalous cues in our assessment of others?

Disingenuous Mistakes and Patina

"In Fashion, Culture, and Identity, Davis (1994) argues that liminality can be manipulated to a signaller's advantage through "disingenuous mistakes," (p. 66) such as the act of purposefully forgetting a button on a shirt or forgetting to shave; these mistakes add a "rough around the edges" genuineness to a sartorial ensemble leading to higher quality signalling." Can you explain how and why this would lead to higher quality signaling? Also, is patina universally difficult to perceive or only difficult for the uninitiated?  What are the implications of each of these possibilities for its value as a signal?

Disingenuous mistakes lead to higher quality signalling because they are a manipulation of expressions given off (the liminal part of the signal), rather than expressions given (the superliminal part of the signal). “Mistakes” connote that which is accidental, unintended, and thus not likely the result of manipulation; and so the clever signaller who commits the disingenuous mistake exploits this common receiver psychology to her own advantage. It is an opportunity to shape portions of the signal which most receivers will accept with minimal suspicion. In contrast, other portions of the signal which are thought to be under the signaller’s willful control are more carefully scrutinized by receivers, comparatively speaking.

Having said that most receivers will perceive the mistake with some sense of trust (and we should allow that this perception may well happen subconsciously), the function of the mistake is what is most interesting. Davis suggests that the “disingenuous mistake” is meant to temper what is expressed. For example, a man by virtue of wearing a well-tailored shirt, signals only that he was able to afford it and it is unclear if it was a choice made out of his natural style or out of calculation. The mistake of forgetting to button a button further stabilizes and disambiguates the initial signal; it is a plea from the signaller to the receiver which seems to cry, “I am not calculating, I commit mistakes; my wearing this shirt is as natural and casual as this innocuous mistake.” Similarly, forgetting to shave qualifies the superliminal signal of wearing a suit jacket by disarming the receiver of the suspicion that the former signal was born out of calculation. Another way of interpreting the psychology of the mistake with respect to a sartorial ensemble is that it ritualizes an outfit to a person, in the same sense that McCracken talks of meaning rituals. What if the irreverence of the mistake unto the garment is a ritual for transferring the meaning from the garment as a generic purchasable good unto the person? The mistake’s effect is to “break it in.” Whichever of these two psychological hypotheses is true, the reason why the addition of a disingenuous mistake increases signal quality is that it enhances the stability and trustworthiness of the primary signal of sartorial choice which by default falls under suspicion of manipulation.

With regards to patina, of the two alternatives given, patina should be only difficult to perceive for the uninitiated rather than be universally difficult. Like fashion, patina is a system for validating status claims, and also like fashion, patina is not difficult to perceive for those well attuned to the nuances of that sign system. An object’s patina is two parts: The physical characteristics of age, and the historical narratives about that object which impart a further sense of age. The reason why uninitiated consumers may find it hard to perceive patina is that they may see yet not fully appreciate the physical characteristics of an object or brand; for example, inscriptions like “Since 1897” seem nice and important, but may not add substantially to appreciation. Recent developments in the contemporary period, however, seek to educate and initiate more consumers into the patina sign system by exposing, through advertisement campaigns, the historical narratives accompanying the physical characteristics of the patina. For example, Rolls-Royce in 2002 and Mercedes-Benz in 2003 launched campaigns reviewing the long history of their cars and owners; this seems aimed at helping consumers to really understand and begin to appreciate the value of the patina.

Suppose we entertain the two situations, one in which patina was universally difficult to perceive, and the other in which patina was only difficult to perceive for the uninitiated. Each has a difficult implication for patina’s value as a signal. In the former situation, patina is difficult to perceive for all; however, this poses a problem for the value of patina: one cannot value something which one cannot well understand. If nobody understands patina well, there can be no cultural market for valuing it. In the latter situation, the fact of being initiated into the art of perceiving patina, confers some status unto this more qualified perceiver. It follows that the set of the initiated carves some higher status subset from the total populous, and it is only these people who understand patina. I argue that this three-tiered arrangement: patina-owners, patina-understanders, and patina-oblivious, makes patina a most valuable signal. Patina is desired and valued by the patina-understanders, while patina-oblivious only know to admire and emulate the patina-understanders (who we argue are higher-status), and thus can learn to value patina transitively via patina-understanders. The overall outcome is clear: patina is most valuable in this arrangement; much more so than in the former situation.

Suspension of Disbelief

"The discrepancy between theatre and social interaction is that while theatre is pre-scripted, social agents in real life have to make choices."

Another difference is the willing suspension of disbelief that people bring to the theatre.  Would Goffman say that a similar suspension occurs in real world interactions or is this a place where the metaphor does not hold?

I believe the poetically inclined Goffman would arguing spiritedly that life and social interactions are inspired by theatre as much as theatre is inspired by real life; he would observe that the suspension of disbelief we exercise for theatre is also exercised in “real life.”

The fact that Goffman views speaker identities and statuses as something fluidly negotiated within any given social interaction is the first clue that suspension of disbelief is at work. For Goffman, social interaction is a game, and if someone can convincingly pass as the persona they portray, and successfully withstand challenges from the other participants in the interaction, then he becomes that character; he has won the negotiation, and unless the other participants can find fault in his performance, the others must table whatever complaints they have and accept his negotiated persona.

Without faith in the protocols of social contract, which require the pragmatic assumption that the other’s self-presentation is genuine (unless there is otherwise reason for suspicion), then social interaction among unacquainted participants would become quite impossible. Distrust and suspicion would cripple communication. In Goffman’s account of social interaction, real individuals dissolve underneath a soiree of masks (after all, the individual’s social self, which we call the “person,” has the etymon “phersu” which means “mask” in Etruscan). By virtue of our acceptance in these masks, we are engaged in suspension of disbelief.

Of course, there is a limit to our suspension of disbelief in social interaction. When we uncover evidence that a participant is failing at his performance of the mask which he has projected, the illusion of the projected character disappears, and the other participants ultimately punish him. Bad actors, well, they get fired too.

Hierarchies, Markets, and Plenitude

"Davis continues to structuralize fashion until his theory takes a breathtaking turn toward the end of the work. He supplants the familiar structuralist ground with a more postmodern, late-capitalist theory of ideal markets: "

Is this different than saying that there are multiple hierarchies in which fashion operates (which is certainly McCracken's claim in "Plenitude")?  If so, what is the difference and why did Davis change to another model rather than go with an essentially the same, though multiple, model?  If not, what is the difference?

Davis’ market idea is different from the multiple hierarchies conceptualization, if only in its nuances. Let us consider the contemporary fragmentation of the cultural space into explosively many cultures, subcultures, and niches. Surely it would be possible to conceptualize each subculture as a hierarchy, and to view the whole culture as a system of hierarchies, but at some point, the hierarchy metaphor becomes less useful, surrendering to the metaphor of markets.

As more and more subcultures spawn off, our interest shifts from the internal workings of each subculture to the interactions between the subcultures. As the pace of subcultural birth, transformation, or death accelerates, the established structure of a hierarchy becomes less interesting and meaningful than the meta-level process which creates these hierarchies. I believe that Davis’ theory of markets is simply a different but better metaphor for the same phenomenon described by multiple hierarchies. Whereas hierarchies focus on a static view, markets addresses the dynamic issues: the motivating force behind fragmentation, and predicts which microcultures will be born and how their hierarchies will be structured.

Rather than trying to salvage the hierarchies model by allowing there to be a system of hierarchies, Davis surrendered to the market theory of fashion. Why did he not salvage that model? Perhaps because he realized each of the fragmented hierarchies is changing too quickly to have any substantial established structure. The new challenge is to predict how culture and fashion changes, not sits still, and the discourse of markets is well-suited to the task.

Incidentally, I think McCracken’s notion of plenitude, which I believe derives from Plato, has a spirit which puts it away from “multiple hierarchies” and closer to “markets.” The original idea of plenitude is that every imaginable potentiality will be fulfilled. And in that interpretation, all hierarchies, including multiple hierarchies, fail at plenitude; discreet subcultures, each with a hierarchy, reeks of structure, rigidity, and inefficiency; markets, I would argue, better embody the spirit of potentiality: in the ideal market, every wish is granted – that in my opinion is the essence of plenitude.

Gestalt of Self, Innate or Induced ?

Simmel, as you point out, fundamentally believed in a coherent core self, but one that was only known to others in fragments.  McCracken postulated "the Diderot effect" by which people were induced to possess sets of things that have a thematic/stylistic/cultural unity.  How does this related to a notion of "gestalt"?  To the how we deal with anomalous cues in our assessment of others?

Simmel’s core self and McCracken’s Diderot Effect represents different views on the “gestalt”; the former conceptualizes the gestalt as innate, and the latter conceptualizes it as induced.

The fact that Simmel believed in a coherent core self betrays his deeply romantic world view. In the wake of post-Enlightenment, the world and the self became destabilized, and centrality was increasingly exposed as a false myth. Simmel, seemingly acting to protect his belief in a core self, and to protect its deconstruction, threw darkness and mystery over the self, declaring that it exists but is not knowable. A nice side effect of this argumentation is that the unknowable core self then only becomes perceptible at the intersection of the fragmentary forms it chooses to manifest partially through. Simmel’s gestalt then, is the essence derived from the intersection of all the fragmentary selves, and the core self then, is the innate generator of the gestalt. Simmel states that our only means for understanding the underlying contents of the self is by witnessing the forms it chooses to manifest itself through, and luckily, the core self craves to manifest itself; and if McCracken’s notion of plenitude might be applied here – no genuine quality of the core self will escape revelation through fragmentary forms. This of course is a sales pitch meant to instill trust in the fidelity of the generated gestalt (set of all fragmentary revelations of self) to the innate core self.

Whereas Simmel portrays the gestalt of all fragmentary revelations of self (this would include one’s job, one’s possessions, etc) as profound and likely faithful to an innate core self, McCracken exposes the gestalt of self as something rather arbitrarily conceived and driven by cultural pressure. The Diderot Effect in essence, is the need to accessorize and to generate a consistent narrative. Let us consider only possessions for a moment. Whereas Simmel might idealize the gestalt of an individual’s possessions as a true availing of an inner core self, the Diderot Effect would offer the much more sinister explanation that it is the cultural pressure to conform and to upgrade which is truly responsible for that gestalt of possessions. The gestalt of possessions, under McCracken’s account, is not a reliable signal of the core self at all, because the decisions in generating the gestalt were influenced by cultural pressure.

These two competing views of the Gestalt of Self lead us to view anomalous cues quite differently when assessing others. Simmel’s gestalt would encourage a signal receiver thusly indoctrinated to regard anomalies with a lover’s eye; impelling him to find truth in that anomaly since it reveals some new aspect of the signaller’s self which now must be investigated. In contrast, McCracken’s account of gestalt portrays gestalt as a fundamentally unreliable measure of self; instead McCracken would say that achieving a consistent gestalt reveals the signaller as well-attuned to the cultural imperative of conformity. Any deviation or anomaly from a fully consistent gestalt, then, signals weakness, perhaps the inadequacy of resources to obtain the consistent gestalt, or an inadequacy of cultural savoir to have consistency as a goal for oneself.

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