Too hasty in yesterday's post. So, some second, unconventional thoughts.
Putting to one side the whole history of the orientalist perspective on the niqab and the visibility of women's bodies is there something peculiarly modern about today's 'concerns', is there anything new to be said? (Of course, the very fact that so many men feel they have the power and right to discuss this, some special degree of insight, is itself revealing).
In other words: in what sense is it Muslims 1, Europe 0?
Is the veil simply and exclusively a form of patriarchy? Do women who "choose" the veil really just suffer from a form of false consciousness, adapting their "preferences" to the constricted circumstances in which they find themselves in (in which they've been placed)? Is the visibility of the face central to western sensibilities, as so many people think?
Of course, at one level a degree of confusion, aversion and perhaps even revulsion is to be expected. There are legitimate concerns about oppression, the lack of free expression (less concern, you think, when bombs are mangling those very same bodies). But there is also plain human nature at work here: anything that represents a stark difference to the prevailing cultural norms will be looked upon with a fair amount of hesitation and suspicion. The question is, I suppose, in a world of three-line stories and breaking news is there any chance for reflection, second thoughts?
Are these women, then, the disappeared?
Perhaps-and I say this only speculatively-one of the reasons why the veil is so frightful is that it clearly goes against the ethos of late capitalism whereby everything should be readily available. Bodies, information and images should be instantly and effortlessly accessible. Anything or anyone that does not give itself to the market to be commodified and eventually priced is missing out on an opportunity. In the neo-liberal era you have to market yourself, put yourself on display (is this one of the main reasons for soaring levels of anxiety?).
What would it mean, today, for the image not to be consumed? Isn't that the real disappearing act..the disappearance of the substantial self? Do we carry around with ourselves another kind of image, one that is a secret or only known obliquely? There are no co-ordinates for the internal self to latch on (existence precedes essence) and history is bunk. All we have is the 'view from nowhere' and a disjointed set of occurrences in which we never fully participate (which is precisely what happens to be useful for an economic system that demands "flexible labour").
No ties to a specific place, no binding obligations (only temporary contracts). The old, solid self of the bourgeois era has come to an end. Not particularly stylish and too worldly, self-interested to be of any enduring value, but when all is said and done still a bulwark against the dissipating forces of late capitalism and science.
It is not just that so much of our thinking militates against a unified and coherent conception of the self (think: academia cannot fathom the possibility of human nature..everything is a "social construct" and in economics there is only the bizarre picture of a robot mechanically choosing to maximize its preferences, preferences that are taken as 'given' and which are not subject to any second-order evaluation); it is that our way of living precludes the formation of a deeper self (or any contact with it). All that is solid melts into air.
There is a world of difference between choosing to disappear and being forced to.
If market forces destroy the public world (reducing it to a play of spectacular or disconnected 'events' and performances) then it also-and this was Arendt's point-diminishes the private realm as well.
Putting to one side the whole history of the orientalist perspective on the niqab and the visibility of women's bodies is there something peculiarly modern about today's 'concerns', is there anything new to be said? (Of course, the very fact that so many men feel they have the power and right to discuss this, some special degree of insight, is itself revealing).
In other words: in what sense is it Muslims 1, Europe 0?
Is the veil simply and exclusively a form of patriarchy? Do women who "choose" the veil really just suffer from a form of false consciousness, adapting their "preferences" to the constricted circumstances in which they find themselves in (in which they've been placed)? Is the visibility of the face central to western sensibilities, as so many people think?
Of course, at one level a degree of confusion, aversion and perhaps even revulsion is to be expected. There are legitimate concerns about oppression, the lack of free expression (less concern, you think, when bombs are mangling those very same bodies). But there is also plain human nature at work here: anything that represents a stark difference to the prevailing cultural norms will be looked upon with a fair amount of hesitation and suspicion. The question is, I suppose, in a world of three-line stories and breaking news is there any chance for reflection, second thoughts?
Are these women, then, the disappeared?
Perhaps-and I say this only speculatively-one of the reasons why the veil is so frightful is that it clearly goes against the ethos of late capitalism whereby everything should be readily available. Bodies, information and images should be instantly and effortlessly accessible. Anything or anyone that does not give itself to the market to be commodified and eventually priced is missing out on an opportunity. In the neo-liberal era you have to market yourself, put yourself on display (is this one of the main reasons for soaring levels of anxiety?).
What would it mean, today, for the image not to be consumed? Isn't that the real disappearing act..the disappearance of the substantial self? Do we carry around with ourselves another kind of image, one that is a secret or only known obliquely? There are no co-ordinates for the internal self to latch on (existence precedes essence) and history is bunk. All we have is the 'view from nowhere' and a disjointed set of occurrences in which we never fully participate (which is precisely what happens to be useful for an economic system that demands "flexible labour").
No ties to a specific place, no binding obligations (only temporary contracts). The old, solid self of the bourgeois era has come to an end. Not particularly stylish and too worldly, self-interested to be of any enduring value, but when all is said and done still a bulwark against the dissipating forces of late capitalism and science.
It is not just that so much of our thinking militates against a unified and coherent conception of the self (think: academia cannot fathom the possibility of human nature..everything is a "social construct" and in economics there is only the bizarre picture of a robot mechanically choosing to maximize its preferences, preferences that are taken as 'given' and which are not subject to any second-order evaluation); it is that our way of living precludes the formation of a deeper self (or any contact with it). All that is solid melts into air.
There is a world of difference between choosing to disappear and being forced to.
If market forces destroy the public world (reducing it to a play of spectacular or disconnected 'events' and performances) then it also-and this was Arendt's point-diminishes the private realm as well.
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