Eco Next: The Mechanics of Hyperpraxis
Why—or
more precisely, how—does a corset symbolize something
very different when it is worn by Madonna than when it was worn
by Victorian housewives?
by G. Willow Wilson
Posted: July 6, 2006
Introduction
In the modern information economy, few subjects are as tension-filled
as symbol-manipulation. Politicians, media figures, religious leaders
and even pop stars rely on symbol-manipulation to convey and control
information. But recent discussion of symbol-manipulation has tended
to address either the creation of interpretable symbol-sets (particularly
applicable to computing and advertising) or symbol substitution
(the rise of the term 'collateral damage' to replace
'civilian casualties', for instance). Less often discussed
is the ideological manipulation of static, existent symbols. Why—or
more precisely, how—does a corset symbolize something
very different when it is worn by Madonna than when it was worn
by Victorian housewives? How has the Starbucks logo become
a symbol of the anti-globalization movement? How has the
Nike 'swoop' gone from consumer fad to symbol of sweat-shop
labor to rehabilitated mega-corp logo?
To address these questions, we can turn to an idea posited by writers
and critics such as Umberto Eco, Jean Baudrillard and Nick Perry:
hyperreality and hyperrealism. Hyperreality is variously defined
as "the simulation of something that never really existed"
(Baudrillard) and "the authentic fake" (Eco). Hyperreality
describes a phenomenon of modern western consumer culture and its
informational environment: the symbol, endlessly replicable and
improvable, has come to replace the 'real' object or
idea it once represented. The map, as stated by Jorges Luis Borges,
is sometimes substituted for physical territory. As we can see from
the complex and deeply psychological impact of border-drawing in
areas like the Palestinian Territories and the former Yugoslavia,
this is often literally true; in the modern world, when a country
ceases to exist on a map, it ceases to exist in reality.
Those who ideologically manipulate the infinitely replicable, recognizable
symbols of modern culture—the Nike swoop, the Starbucks logo,
Madonna's now-infamous corset—operate not within reality,
which is subject to the laws of physics and time, but in hyperreality,
the reality of replication and interpretation. As a practice, the
ideological manipulation of static, commonly recognized symbols
could thus be accurately termed hyperpraxis. While the
original connotation of hyperreality was decidedly negative, hyperpraxis
can be a very positive phenomenon; to engage in hyperpraxis is not
necessarily to endorse hyperreality, but to accept it as the norm
of the modern information and consumer (and information consumer)
economy.
Defining Hyperpraxis
A basic definition of hyperpraxis might be 'the
ideological manipulation of a static, established symbol or practice
within a religious, spiritual, political or social tradition.'
The terms 'static' and 'established' are
especially important in this context: the cross is a static (largely
unchanged and unlikely to change), established symbol of the Christian
faith; likewise, the Pepsi logo is a static and established symbol
of the Pepsi Corporation. The invention or alteration of symbols
is not hyperpraxis; this might be termed hypercreation or hyperalteration.
Praxis in this context is taken to mean practice within
or tangential to an established tradition (whether ancient or modern),
as in orthoprax Buddhism, a heteroprax anarchist, a practicing
Wiccan, etc.
An interesting example of hyperpraxis in modern western pop-culture
is the shifting connotation of a shaved head: this was originally
a symbol of punk subculture, but in the early 1980's it was
assimilated by neo-nazis to appeal to disaffected youth, hence the
term 'skinhead'. Today, there is a movement within the
punk subculture to reclaim head-shaving as a non-racist symbol.
Thus, the ideological manipulation of the symbol—the established
symbol, a shaved head, remained unchanged; the meaning behind it
was consciously altered—is bringing that symbol full circle
to its original connotation. Some modern feminists, such as Vagina
Monologues author Eve Ensler, have used hyperpraxis to de-sensitize
and rehabilitate symbols and words for the female anatomy. Similarly,
segments of the western gay rights movement have sought to rehabilitate
and reclaim the word 'queer'. Any movement to "take
back the language" is a form of hyperpraxis: assimilating
a symbol (including a word) in common use and altering the meaning
or value-set behind it. The result can be either positive or negative—or
purposefully ironic—depending on the intent of the hyperpract.
Hyperpraxis, then, can be differentiated from heteropraxis because
it does not alter the symbol-set of the tradition in which it operates.
A heteroprax Christian might (for instance) replace the Lord's
Prayer in his or her personal practice with a prayer he or she has
written, or even a prayer from another religious tradition. A hyperprax
Christian would continue to use the Lord's Prayer even if
he or she found its typical (orthodox) connotation to be negative;
rather than altering this commonly accepted symbol/practice, he
or she would endow it with a new, unorthodox or personal meaning.
Thus, in religious traditions, hyperpraxis can produce individuals
who are outwardly orthoprax (typical in their personal religious
practice) but highly unorthodox in their thinking and/or belief.
A wider recognition of hyperpraxis in this context has tremendous
political implications; in the West's search for 'moderate'
Muslims, it has overlooked hyperprax Muslim leaders in favor of
heteroprax figures whose devotional eccentricities (or outright
atheism) typically leave them with little moral authority in the
greater Muslim community. Recognizing and supporting hyperprax Muslim
leaders (such as former Egyptian Grand Mufti Sheikh Muhammad al
Tantawi, who in the 1980's famously issued a fatwa legalizing
sex-change operations) would provide the West with deeper and more
meaningful ties to the Muslim world.
Deductive Versus Intuitive Hyperpraxis
The form of hyperpraxis we have been discussing thus far is a phenomenon
I will call 'deductive hyperpraxis'. It is the manipulation
of a symbol or practice whose commonly accepted meaning is known
to the hyperpract; a meaning that he or she has come to understand
through study or memetic cultural transmission. The new meaning
with which the symbol is endowed by the hyperpract is deduced from
personal experience (I'm told the symbol means X, but because
I've experienced the world in a certain way, I feel its appropriate
meaning is Y), social/political aim (I'm told the symbol means
X, but if I am to alter people's perceptions in a certain
way, the symbol must be changed to mean Y) or a combination of the
two.
Intuitive hyperpraxis is something altogether different. We know
intuitive hyperpracts as oracles, shamans and fortune-tellers: people
who intuitively interpret symbols that have no commonly accepted
or widely-known meaning. Bird-diviners, bone-readers, palm-readers,
dream-interpreters; all these could be considered intuitive hyperpracts.
Rather than working symbol-out (the symbol arises from the idea;
ie, the United States was established before it took the bald eagle
as its heraldic device), intuitive hyperpracts work symbol-in (the
idea arises from the symbol; a palm reader must see the pattern
on a hand before he or she can tell you what it means).
Intuitive hyperpraxis differs from intuition because it relies
on symbols; a tea-leaf reader can guess nothing about a person's
future without first examining that person's teacup. Having
a hunch that a certain friend is about to call is not intuitive
hyperpraxis; having that same hunch because of a particular spread
of tarot cards is intuitive hyperpraxis.
Intuitive hyperpraxis differs from standard praxis because one
symbol—say, a specific pattern of sticks in I Ching—may
be interpreted many different ways by many different hyperpracts.
As with deductive hyperpraxis, in intuitive hyperpraxis, the symbols
are standardized; the meanings or ideas are not. While some forms
of intuitive hyperpraxis have been codified over the centuries (like
I Ching or dream interpretation with the advent of Jungian/Freudian
psychology), each form is still deeply subject to the impulses and
intuition of the individual hyperpract.
While intuitive hyperpraxis is an observable phenomenon—there
are plenty of people who claim particular abilities of intuitive
symbol-interpretation—the point of this essay is not to assert
whether intuitive hyperpraxis is always or ever an accurate science.
Hyperpraxis in Action: Red vs. Blue States
A good example of the nature and potential memetic impact of deductive
hyperpraxis (which from now on I will refer to simply as 'hyperpraxis',
since the intuitive variety has only peripheral practical applications)
is the manipulation of 'red' and 'blue'
as symbols of political affiliation in the US. Today, 'blue'
states are majority-Democrat states: liberal, usually urban, socially
progressive. 'Red' states are majority-Republican states:
conservative, usually rural or suburban, socially traditional. During
the Cold War, however, the same colors—red and blue—were
used to denote opposite political affiliations. A 'Red',
a 'pinko', was a liberal—someone sympathetic to
communism and supportive of unrestricted free speech and women's
advancement. It was during this era that the color pink came to
be closely associated with the burgeoning gay rights movement that
arose out of Machina and the Stonewall riots. A 'blue-blooded'
American was a conservative—someone supportive of America's
opposition to communism abroad, of traditional social values and
roles, and of state's rights.
While 'red' and 'blue' are still the colors
used to denote each state's (and each American's) political
affiliation, the reversal in the meaning of each color is the result
of hyperpraxis; the intentional ideological manipulation of symbols
in common use. As during the Cold War, today the color red is perceived
in America to be a color of aggression and expansion. In the post-WWII
era, communism as it spread across the globe was seen to be an aggressive,
expansionist ideology; those who sympathized with either its mission
or its member states were 'red'. Today, however, conservatives
who support the enforcement and expansion of western values abroad
are called the aggressors, the 'reds'. The term 'blue-blood'
has undergone a similar hyperprax transformation, and is used by
conservatives to denote an aristocrat: soft, over-educated, snobbish,
the 'new liberal'. Author Phil Patton, writing for the
AIGA Journal of Design, poses another theory for the value-shift
of 'red' and 'blue': "One has to suspect
that the first usage of it [red] to represent Republicans was inspired
by an effort to seem non-prejudicial," in other words, to
negate political stereotypes associated with the color red through
hyperpraxis.
Looking Ahead
Hyperpraxis is a new word for a very old practice. The effects
of hyperpraxis as a means of altering public perception can be found
in the Bible; when Jesus entered Jerusalem, its citizens, eager
for self-rule and the expulsion of the Romans, put palm-fronds,
the symbol embossed on Roman coins, beneath his feet. In a moment,
the symbol of foreign rule became the symbol of a religious revolution;
Palm Sunday is still celebrated by Christians today.
In the modern world, the uses and implications of hyperpraxis might
even be greater. When information is a commodity in and of itself,
hyperpraxis functions as both a tool and a weapon, providing a method
to rehabilitate, but also to co-opt and denigrate, symbols in common
use. A higher awareness of the function of hyperpraxis in modern
media, politics and religious and social movements will give rise
to a better-educated information consumer, one who is able to analyze
the technicalities of spin and spin-control. The question 'how'
is a process-oriented question; anyone who can answer 'How
do the meanings of symbols change?' has access not only to
the implications, but to the very mechanics of information design
and delivery.
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