HUMANITAS

VICTORIA UNIVERSITYUNDERGRADUATEJOURNAL FOR THEHUMANITIES

VOLUME 3 | FALL 2013

EDITORIAL STAFF AND CONTRIBUTORS

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

CHRISTOPHER MASTROPIETRO

DEPUTY EDITOR

MATTEO PIRRI

EXECUTIVE EDITOR

MONICA GEORGIEFF

EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS

DINA HASSAN

KELVIN CHU

LINDSAY MAYER

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

CAMILLE PYLYPCZAK

ACADEMIC ADVISOR

PROFESSOR JOSIAH BLACKMORE

AUTHORS

SARAH DANRUO WANG

LAUREN DINELEY

JENNIFER GALLEY

CARA SCHACTER

FOUNDING MEMBERS

HUMANITAS was founded in 2010 by Christopher Mastropietro, Matteo Pirri, Lakshi Sivagnanam, and Camille Pylypczak

Sure Print & Design110 W Beaver Creek Rd #18, Richmond Hill, ON L4B 1J9

CONTENTS

HUMANITASVOLUME 3 | FALL 2013

5 EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION

11 THE BURDEN OF CREATIVITY AND THE CONSOLATIONS OF PHILOSOPHY

SARAH DANRUO WANG

26 MCLUHAN, CONTEMPORARY MEDIA CULTURE AND MENTAL HEALTH

LAUREN DINELEY

33 COLLECTIVE ACTION: FRAMES OF OCCUPY JENNIFER GALLEY

49 J.D. SALINGER AND HAND WASHING CARA SCHACTER

52 EDITORIAL BOARD AND SELECTION GUIDELINES

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INTRODUCTION TO HUMANITAS

It is springtime in Toronto’s Annex, where Victorian homes and afternoon sangria give some mid-May relief to the end of an academic term. Such is the view from Tik Talk Café, where HUMANITAS’ two founders sit to plot a course for its third volume and bid farewell to three years of editorship. Our discussion is disproportionately casual set against the meeting’s talking point, but we know that we’re not immune; upcoming graduates are among the most eligible targets of the so-called ‘student anxiety pandemic’, and this is the topic of the day. We can’t quite feel it yet, but advanced notice of crisis combined with a delay of effect is sufficient for feelings of trepidation. We can only speculate that if we are braced for the worst and take nothing for granted, our suspense may set us somewhere behind the frontlines of its impact. Or one might hope. It is difficult to know where to begin. The line between mental ‘soundness’/ ‘unsoundness’ seems camouflaged in the greyscales of intersecting symptoms, and without the proper tools at our disposal it becomes difficult to play matchmaker between causes and effects. We won’t try. Nor will we play loose with definitions of mental illness. But the topic of mental soundness at the university has been creeping into our collective consciousness for the better part of three years. The anecdotal evidence is abundant now, but the problem of generalizing unsoundness is that the condition is so individualized. Suffice to say, many of us are overwhelmed, expressing high degrees of stress that seem bundled with misgivings about the future – about meeting material needs, and achieving meaningful lives with intimate company and fulfilling work. The connection between these goals and our studies seems unclear, especially in humanities disciplines where so much of what we do is meant to enhance our facility with the rest of life. And this unsoundness seems to have something to do with an ill-defined solicitude, a feeling of anxiety that sits in the margins of our

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readings, and has taken residence in the gap between our present and future selves. Broaching the topic of anxiety was something we felt necessary given the mandate of this publication. As an undergraduate journal, our right to construe the trends of student mental health could only come from our at-risk stake in the situation, and the journal’s prerogative to use the instruments of critical thinking to balance the interpretation of student-centric concerns. An undergraduate has very little authority to lend his suspicions, but a perspective from the problem’s receiving line raises a powerful privilege for us; these two graduates are (in full disclosure) as jaded to their own prospects as the rest of the Convocating world. Hopefully this gives us some academic allowance. Before proceeding, it is important that we caution the aim of this project: as a therapy, dialogue has bifurcated consequences. Sometimes communicating a problem makes the problem seem at ease, and spoken review softens the potency of unspoken effects. One can’t help but think of Freud’s metaphor for the talking cure as psychological excavation – disorder exposed to the open air might erode a little in the wind, and if true, it might testify to the doctoring effects of discourse more than any humanities student would have dared to believe. The more a problem is made subterranean, the more it thrives. Mark Taylor (2007) said something like this of religion (though not as a problem): that it is often more influential when it is least obvious. On the other hand, one also wonders if the genesis of the problem is buried somewhere in its renown. We hear about it, we read about it, we talk about it and we ‘tweet’ about it. We cite it in hard spots and we post grievance on every server, site and social wall that our fingertips can reach. We are, after all, the Facebook generation. Pocket dials, pokes and pinging notifications are our claims on social life, and in twenty or so years we’ll be paying for their damages. The social fallout of social networking is well-observed by now: word travels faster than tone and passions travel faster than explanations. Oftentimes the latter never catch up with the former and there is hell to pay when far flung comments miss the mark of due consideration. So the trouble is this: in twenty years, how will we tell the difference between the anxiety we reported and the anxiety we created by the need to report? How will we curb an age of electronic voyeurs with impulsive trigger fingers and a removed want for intimacy? How do we steer around the envy of comparison and address the fault lines forming in our social

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sensibility? It is easy to be overwhelmed by menus of possibility and to feel equally unrehearsed for all of them. It seems that the world has never been so simultaneously accessible and restricted, so pervasive is the fear of having nothing next to those appearing to have so much….the want for everything at once, to be close to everyone at once, all from a tremendous distance. From these symptoms, we venture to ask in this editorial whether the ‘posting’ of our anxiety has become part of its contagion. If that connection, distant or direct, is sound, we can’t help but wonder the unsoundness of the conjecture we’re feeding by adding to the letters of record. But the alarm is rung, and we can’t un-ring it. So instead we can ask the basic questions: What is the nature of this thing that is happening to us? If we have beliefs about our student soundness, what do we believe? And if we don’t believe it, does it affect us all the same? Let’s enter some statistics. In September of 2012, Maclean’s published a feature discussing ‘the mental health crisis on university campuses’. It came with the headline: CANADIAN STUDENTS FEEL DEPRESSED, HOPELESS, EVEN SUICIDAL. In this article and others, waves of statistics gave witness to the decline of mental health on university campuses. These began to grow in number beginning in 2010 and the testimonies are still mounting at the time of this writing. In 2012, the Ryerson Centre for Counselling saw a 200 percent increase in their student clientele. Another Maclean’s article published in 2010 cites various studies in Canada and the U.S. that claim “30 per cent of post-secondary students suffer from a mental health or substance abuse issue, compared to 18 per cent of the general population.” One quarter of university age students in Canada, the article claims, will be compromised in their mental health, most often in the form of stress, anxiety or depression. This isn’t exactly surprising. Michael Van Ameringen, a professor in the Department of Psychiatry at McMaster University, is quoted in the article saying that students in their late teens and early twenties (the undergraduate years) are at a ‘peak age’ of susceptibility, whereby a natural vulnerability to psychological disorder forms cross-hairs with the trials of young adulthood. These circumstances, of course, range from the student’s “stress of moving away from home, to academic demands, social pressures, parents’ expectations, and a looming recognition of the tough job market awaiting them.” The latter

INTRODUCTION

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has been emphasized by periodicals from Maclean’s to The Globe and Mail to the New York Times as the necessary condition in the composite surge of anxiety. The career pressures of competition, caused by high undergraduate enrollment in disproportion to a sparse market is a plausible cause for dread, one that not only threatens vaguely from the future but prescribes grade-point overachievement as its only (and still not guaranteed) antidote. The pressures of such achievement are fierce, and that it often comes at the cost of balance in one’s social, emotional and extracurricular life is still more complicating. This simplest explanation is the most touted. One Maclean’s subheading read: THE GENERATION NOW ENTERING UNIVERSITY IS THE MOST ANXIOUS SINCE THE 1930S. The economic correlation is lost on no one. Most forum discussions implicate the current recession as key to the whole debacle. Undoubtedly there is some truth to this; if a young adult has been well provided for as so many of us have, and is aware enough to realize the fragility of her privilege, her resourcefulness (or lack thereof) will have become a sore sensitivity. The notion of not being able to provide for oneself is a paralyzing prospect in this delicately liminal transition – far-off enough to create objectless apprehension, and near enough to become fateful. But perhaps we are over-distinguishing our moment in time. Many of these concerns are typical – if not archetypal – experiences, hardly the products of a new age but rather the natural signs of a certain individuation. Sure, the world is different than it once was, but aside from its hyper-extending communicability, does our culture fair any worse in either the material or (we dare to say) the spiritual conditions of life? If so, not obviously. Or is our student culture burdened with an excess of nattering self-observation, the reeds of which stymie the forward movements of our maturity? Alas, also not obvious. In a late 2012 interview with David Goldbloom, U of T Professor and Chair of the Mental Health Commission of Canada, The Globe and Mail asked: Do we have a generation of students that is more anxious or less resilient? Seeing the question’s implications, he was understandably hesitant to answer. If the latter is true, we have a very unflattering diagnosis put upon the countenance of our generation. We’ve been bubble-wrapped by a prolonged childhood and ‘helicopter parents’ and we simply lack the coping skills that assured the adulthood of our predecessors. Historian Ian Dowbiggin and journalist

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Daniel Smith argued as much on a recent episode of The Agenda with Steve Paikin, suggesting that that we are an ‘illness-affirming’ culture that disables itself from dealing as stoically with life’s challenges as our ancestors did. “We are experiencing more anxiety now,” Smith said, “but the more people identify with it as a disorder, the more people identify with it as disordered thinking.” If either of the Globe’s possibilities (more anxiety or less resilience) is true, then we have a veritable historical problem. If neither is true, then it appears we have a short intergenerational memory when it comes to universalizing the in-betweenness of this uncertain stage of life. If uncertainty is itself the problem, then perhaps it is indigenous to the student’s disposition, and we are romanticizing a stoical past that never really existed. And so we name this issue of HUMANITAS for the sideways slash between two unclear terms, sound and unsound. The difference seems no more or less defined than the feelings of our anxiety, so we can’t ID our problem on this premise alone. And if it is not really a problem, it will endeavour to be one until otherwise proven. If the problem is dreamed up, it’s no less of a threat for having been dreamed up. So we have the problem anyway, and no one with the prescriptive power to remove its effects if such a power is possible. Maclean’s may be right in saying that it’s simply never easy to be young. This is the time of growth pains and fierce unsettlement, figuring identity in the home stretch of independence. If it isn’t riddled with angst and anxiety then what is it supposed to be? How much of this anxiety is the recurrence of age old trials pressed with more coverage and alarmist newspeak, and how much of it is evidence of something new and unbidden? The most plaguing questions are not the descriptive definitions, but the normative dilemmas, and so the problem is unmistakably an existential one. We all feel unease about a time when we are no longer a student, and must do and be other than what we are doing and being right now. What should we know? How can we know? And what should the university’s role be? If the unsound anxieties are the ‘peak-age’ demons of an undergraduate student, what rescue do the student’s studies afford? What is the remedial soundness of our intellectual projects? If the academic life can infect us with the anxiety of choice, perhaps it can it also guide the wisdom of decision. What I really need is to get clear about what I must do, not what I must know, except insofar as knowledge must precede every act. This is the most famous quote

INTRODUCTION

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by the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, written while he studied at the University of Copenhagen in 1835. If we share our problem soundly with his thoughts, we may be assured that, whatever the psychophysical cost, our concerns are at least in good philosophical company.

CHRISTOPHER MASTROPIETRO

Editor-In-Chief

MATTEO PIRRI

Deputy Editor

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THE BURDEN OF CREATIVITY AND THE CONSOLATIONS OF PHILOSOPHY

SARAH DANRUO WANG

The university student in the contemporary environment is constantly discerning amidst the proliferation of stimuli. The process of creativity and the norms of competition often put tremendous pressure on mental soundness, with the student often deciding on a tradeoff between health and academic commitments. Using the writings Johann Gottfried Herder, Georg Simmel, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Arthur Schopenhauer, medical and psychological studies on intellect and mental health, and other cultural analyses of creativity, this paper aims to give a general theoretical background on the environment and terrain of creativity and argues that creativity is burdensome because in an academic environment with this demographic, it is guaranteed and mandated. This personal and academic development, the successes and obstacles, the need of subjective autonomy within the objective totality of history and society are at once perpetuated forward by creativity and progress, and supported at the foundation through modern German philosophy.

All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusions is called a philosopher. - Ambrose Bierce

Many say that this is the best time of life: the crossroads of the zeniths of the physical and mental development of the person. In the past few years, the downturn of the economy with rising test scores and a multitude of graduating classes with more advanced degrees and qualifications only reinforce the significance of competition. Whether it be the traditional student (those in late teens and early twenties) or the mature student

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returning to school, university is meant to be a point in life that sustains intellectual liberation. In the West, the historical education practices of the Socratic method and the pressures to maintain a certain grade point average, publish research papers, and achieve high-standing executive positions in extracurricular activities mandate a certain kind of individuality above one’s peers. These issues are augmented by the fact that in contemporary society there seems to be a multiplicity of everything; what Darwin called natural adaptation is just ornamented today as creativity. Creativity is quite the controversial word, weighted with cultural and personal preferences. It is also related to the concepts of cultivation and creation, and in the case of the university student, one must cultivate the works of the previous masters to somehow create his or her own contribution to a specific field in the course of academic evolution. The most primitive and elementary of this transition is seen in the “thesis” of every analytic paper to broader theories or even tangible accomplishments through intellectual maturation. With so many responsibilities and so many affiliations, this constant externalization of internal creativity and intelligence often distracts the student from maintaining his or her mental health. Although in the past decades, more and more Western universities have funded diverse projects to alleviate mental health concerns, the contemporary student often sees taking care of one’s mental health as a tradeoff with academic and professional success. Conversely, academic and mental stability are often complementary. Ultimately, the pressures of the contemporary student are not that different from the modern man, trying to find a balance between the objective and subjective despite the proliferation of stimuli and desires. The university experience, particularly one in a metropolitan city, can be socially alienating and mentally aggravating. From the depressive nadirs to the manic climaxes, philosophy can offer a certain sense of grounded compassion during this paramount voyage of self-discovery. Amidst the dialectic of subjectivity and objectivity, in a terrain ardently mapped by Johann Gottfried Herder, Georg Simmel, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Arthur Schopenhauer, academically and mentally, the road does not have to be travelled alone. I want to note that this paper does not discuss any particular form of mental illness or disorder but a more general malaise of the university student in the contemporary environment. As a student of international relations, philosophy, and fine art history, I still feel foreign to academic analysis of the human psychology. To speak with some sort of authority on any mental condition would be a complete disservice to the discipline

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and those affected. Furthermore, this delineation between sound and unsound is fine at best and usually obscured by our relative prejudices and experiences. The objectivity of any aspect of health is to create an overarching structure to define, treat, and support various instances of un-health, yet each such instances are overwhelmingly endured subjectively. Furthermore, there is a monumental obstacle in parsing emotions and dissatisfaction with debilitating cognitive processes that disturb everyday life. Yet to distinguish these sets of emotions would be to prioritize instances based on urgency. The question then comes down to this: who actually has the time? For many university students, success is a crucial motive, one that is set in motion by some sort of routine of studying and working. To step outside that channel of behavior and identify something so fundamental to their being as unusual or “unsound” is time-consuming, humiliating, and many times met with reproach. Finally, there is the issue of stigma. Mental health is not prioritized or even recognized in many cultures, and though should it be part of regular health discourse, many still regard those with symptoms of mental health disability to be weak. The perception of mental health and its consequent stigmas are also entirely intertwined with gender, class, ethnic, and age-related issues. Many still believe that mental health has the advantage of lacking physical distress, yet contemporary research proves that this could not be further from the truth; ‘physical’ is not always synonymous with ‘visible’. Recovery is often a long-term project, one that may take a lifetime of personal reflection and understanding, and is thus not an easy “excuse” for the university student. Obviously with these concepts in mind, the discussion of mental soundness is ever-expanding, and this paper will only touch the surface and offer a general discussion of the philosophical considerations of mental fatigue.

Setting the external scene and the perpetual cycle of subjectivity and objectivity

The former President of Victoria University at the University of Toronto, Roseann Runte recalls, “the first week at university is a strange experience, replete with a myriad of emotions ranging from awe and apprehension to exhilaration and joy.”1 After the honeymoon period, the university can easily become an institution driven by the supremacy of egos. Yet particularly in the first couple of weeks when instruction is elementary, when students are not pressured to produce unique works of

1 Runte, “On the Value of Wisdom and the Power of Knowledge,” 21. (hereafter cited in text)

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research to add to the breadth of respective disciplines, there must be some established sense of humility. Runte ruminates: “as human beings we all share the knowledge of the finite quality of our existence, this knowledge inspires us to seek infinity, the impossible” (Runte, 23). Our technologies, our opportunities, and our standards of living may be the most advanced in the course of human civilization, yet there is never a shortage of astonishment or intellectual fraternity when one reads a historical text. Those awkward pre-teen years ossified our teenage characters, but these years in university construct our mentalities for the rest of our adult lives. We struggle for recognition, and for individuality amongst the tiers of thousands of students, professors, and scholars. Nonetheless, one is confined to the totality of intellectual development, an intimidating monolith of global contributions refined through the millennia. Many students complain of reading those “great works” by dead white men who have little relevance to today’s accelerated conduct of living. And all of this is quite ironic and cruel; students are reminded of their own mortality in what is supposed to be the summit of their young lives. Any conceptual or tangible instances of their creativity will ultimately outlive them. During the height of the Enlightenment, Johann Gottfried Herder wrote Treatise on the Origin of Language in 1772. Herder’s works are scarcely read in most philosophy faculties as his ingenious and timeless concepts somehow often cannot stand up to the challenges of modern day globalization. In the Treatise, he aimed to separate man from animal. For Herder, animals are driven by art while humans are driven by reason. To locate the individual within its species and the species within this world, he notes “the sphere [Sphäre] of animals,” related to what present-day scientists call the “ecosphere”.2 Each animal then has its own circle or Kreis to which it belongs for a lifetime. Herder goes on to note “that the sharper animals’ senses are and the more marvelous the products of their art, then the smaller their circle is, the more limited in kind the product of their art” (von Herder, 78). The Sphäre and Kreis of these animals can be seen as almost a natural specialization of labour, in which an animal such as the spider will forever exercise the ability to create art that nature gave it, spinning its web both for aesthetic pleasure and functional survival. The human is different in that “his senses and organization are not sharpened for a single thing, his forces of soul are distributed over the world” and because of a human’s physical mobility, evolved reasoning and supremacy over Mother Nature, communicating and thereby reducing the conceptual

2 von Herder, “Treatise on the Origin of Language (1772),” 78. (hereafter cited in text)

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space between one’s peers require language (von Herder, 79). One hundred and thirty-one years later at the dawn of the twentieth century, Georg Simmel published The Metropolis and Mental Life in 1903. The mass urbanization and industrialization of the long nineteenth century had ossified, and “the deepest of modern life flow from the attempt of the individual to maintain the independence and individuality of his existence against the sovereign powers of society, against the weight of the historical heritage and the external culture and technique of life.”3 In an urban setting, the individual is estranged from his emotional, rural roots and engages in the proliferation of external stimuli that swallow modern architecture. On every street the sensory awareness of the individual is tested; the darting lights, the coruscating signs, and the overall glimmer of capitalism change the cognitive process of the individual, causing him to act on purely intellectual abilities. So how does one prioritize? How does one choose what to focus on in the modern city? In short, whatever leads to profit, as the embellished city is the external façade of the infrastructure of capitalism. Whereas once “the producer and the purchaser knew one another,” the market creates for potential demand, as the individual is demoted to a quantitative existence and commercial exchanges are obscured in anonymity (Simmel, 12). Furthermore, to ensure efficiency the metropolis is maintained by an orderly sense of time through “punctuality, calculability and exactness” and this precision keeps everyone in their proper places of production and consumption (Simmel, 13). This lack of meaningful human engagement is characterized by Simmel as the external, blasé attitude. Fleeting human interactions are met with indifference. Eventually, the individual dissolves among the rest of the stimuli. The subject is nonetheless aware of this and may choose to revolt just to stand out, to be remembered, and to stabilize himself through his surroundings. From what one wears to what one says to one’s overall reputation, something must stand out to attract attention. This is a desolate thought: man ultimately competes with what he constructed for recognition. Herder remarks that as humanity’s Sphäre expands, each Kreis also expands. Our mobility and diverse capabilities liberate us from the limitations of Mother Nature. Yet over a century later, Simmel’s city witnesses another confinement through artificial means. The university student studying in a city like Toronto is all too familiar with this overwhelming import of stimuli. Today, not only are the darting lights

3 Simmel, “The Metropolis and Mental Life,” 11. (hereafter cited in text)

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and buzz of traffic distracting, the mobility of communication devices and the permeation of social network sites compress information at expedited speeds. The simplicity of the black and white pages of books now seems incredibly antediluvian and prosaic. Herder’s diversity and Simmel’s society-imposed specialization are seen in the confusing process of a liberal arts education. The student is encouraged to maintain a multidisciplinary experience and then persuaded to specialize in one rigorous discipline for the sake of efficiency and employment prospects. The large first and second year classes not only discourage direct engagement with professors but also isolate students who may have similar interests or struggles. If to be noticed is to be recognized, many students equate creativity to high achievement in order to be remembered (and thus be exposed to more opportunities for research, recommendation letters, etc.) by preoccupied professors or indifferent peers. This recognition then sets in motion and perpetuates competition. Finally, the notion of time cannot be extracted from the university experience. From the exact hours of instruction on syllabi to the generosity of those “making extra time” in the form of office hours by appointment, or extracurricular study sessions to students calculating opportunity costs from taking the time out of studying to find part-time work, this interpersonal indifference is supplemented by the fact that people have less time for others and for the maintenance of their own health. A friend in residence on medication for depression once shared with me this anecdote: she was unable to communicate her need for another extension for a paper due to documented mental stress to which her teaching assistant bluntly responded, “is this not enough?”

On freedom and maturity

Education and research all originate from reading what others have written before. The student’s first instance of freedom is to discern what is most important and most relevant to whatever he continues to argue through his creativity. This ability to discern is fundamentally an invitation to choose, to judge, and to challenge in an anachronistic process through a contemporary lens. This is also seen as the primary factor separating Western education from Asian education; rote learning is seen as intellectual imprisonment and creativity is encouraged from early childhood. The problem stemming from intellectual curiosity and freedom evolves into the debate of whether or not intellectual ability and maturation is evidence of mental soundness.

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Herder claims that what differentiates man from animal is man’s realization of his ability for reason. The animal is driven completely by instinct, whereas man was granted by nature “the single positive force of thought, which, bound up with a certain organization of the body” (von Herder, 83). Herder defines this recognition of one’s ability to reason as a disposition called besonnenheit, coming from the verb sinnen or “to reflect” (von Herder, Ibid.). This introspection is ultimately what gives man a sustained sense of freedom to choose and prioritize external stimuli. This ability to manipulate information is a foundation for creativity - a crucial mental process to be polished in the course of a university education - and cultivation, another central trait distinguishing the evolution of humans and animals. From freedom issues maturity. In response to Berlinische Monatsschrift, Immanuel Kant defined enlightenment as “mankind’s exit from its self-incurred immaturity” in his essay What is Enlightenment? (1784).4 He defines this kind of immaturity like the word ‘minority’, coming from ‘minor’, alluding to the concept of needing guidance. He modifies this word with “self-incurred” because the subject does not lack understanding, but rather courage due to laziness and cowardice (Kant, 58). Students are accustomed to being told how to think, and with copious variations of “Cliff’s Notes”, some students are quite content to repeat information as they perceive to have little to contribute to the discussion. Kant blames this immaturity partially on intellectual guardians by claiming they “domesticate” those “placid creatures” who cannot think for themselves, who have “never been permitted to make the attempt [at individual thinking]”, and never took that “uncertain leap over the smallest ditch” (Kant, 59). But the individual has dual roles in Kant’s perspective; there is that private and public use of reason seen again in the extension of the individual’s courage, to not only think for oneself but also to publicize one’s reason (Kant, 59-60). Kant goes on to describe the public and private uses of reason, indicating the limitations of one’s occupation. A person may be a civil servant and a scholar simultaneously, and the masses should only expect to see the public use of knowledge of the individual’s scholarly activities. The individual’s decision-making process and conduct of affairs in his profession (civil servant, military official, clergyman) may remain private. As long as people do their jobs, society has a foundation that will

4 Kant, “What is Enlightenment?” 58. (hereafter cited in text) Note that in many other translations, immaturity is translated as minority.

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run in a way that is receptive to the publicizing of scholarly reason. Can the student be delineated in this manner? Is there a public scholar and a private being? If so, decisions about mental health are completely at the liberty of the individual. It is easy to generalize the idea that the individual is responsible for her mental health, but this brings up another dichotomy: the objectivity of defining and treating mental health opposite the subjective experience of living with mental health issues. If the student is at liberty, coupled with lack of time, commitments, and stigma, what about ethical issues stemming from lack of external supports to enforce treatment and healthy behaviours? And should this lack of disclosure be based on fear? In Kant’s model of publicizing one’s use of reason, one’s privatization of reason deprives others from publicizing their reason as well. Mental health literature always seems to be subordinated to physical health discourse, yet there still seems to be a perception that intellectual curiosity, creativity, and maturation are evidence of mental soundness. Yet many of history’s greatest artists, statesmen, authors, and intellectuals were reported to have suffered from various forms of mental instability - Virginia Woolf and Winston Churchill among them. Aristotle talked about the effects of “black bile” (or melancholia) and genius, and texts and analyses after him asked: “why is it that all those who have become eminent in philosophy or politics or poetry or the arts are clearly of an atrabilious temperament?”5 Many suggestions are given, yet all revolve around tendencies to “think outside of the box” and take risks. Yet, this is also projection of creativity which would be categorized in Kant’s case as “public, scholarly use of reason” (Kant, 60). Aristotle also notes another paradox in which there is a “natural state” making it “easier for individuals to identify themselves with other people, the gifted melancholic thus has a propensity to become all the others.” (Weismann and Tordjman, 3). To explain this paradox, it seems as if what Herder and Kant noted as freedom is a tool for the student to not only choose between stimuli but also to choose between which aspect of himself or herself to publicize. It also fits Simmel’s metropolis quite well; students repress and desensitize the need for publicizing and treating mental health issues, distracting any suspicion with intellectual garnishes, as it is nonetheless easier to stand out intellectually than come out mentally.

5 Weismann and Tordjman, “Depression Research and Treatment.” 3. (hereafter cited in text)

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Creativity, critique, and honesty; being and disappointment

A break is deserved, a recess from the profound ruminations of those Germans with so much time to think. Across the Atlantic in 1968, Saul Bass and Mayo Simon produced the animated, short documentary film called Why Man Creates, which would later win the Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject. It is the sum of eight vignettes starting with “The Edifice”, a fascinating narrative of human history beginning with the cavemen and the bull, and extending all the way to our modern reliance on nuclear energy. Parts two and three - “Fooling Around” and “The Process” - ask where ideas come from, whether they be from spontaneous inspiration or a more strategic kind of organization. In part four -“Judgment” - society starts its critique, and the proliferation of opinions only prove the diversity of perspectives and the disintegration of communication and understanding between producers and consumers. And part five, “Digression”, explores the negative consequence of creativity, noting that it does not always lead to innovation, or success, and that a lifetime’s investment into creativity could be in vain. This realization is poignantly confronted when the last interviewed scholar claims that for seven years his “line of investigation seems to have led nowhere, that’s the nature of the process.”6 When asked, what he will pursue now, he is reduced to: “I don’t know” (Why Man Creates). Until now, this paper has assumed that the marriage of mental processes and creativity along with the willed repression of mental disturbances will lead to recognition, acceptance, and ultimately success. The process of creativity is not completely autonomous and at some interim, either the process itself or the product will be subject to external critique which in turn mandates internal revision or, at worst, acceptance of futility. To return to the conceptual framework of objectivity, subjectivity and freedom, Simmel would view creativity as the subject’s revolt against the blasé attitude of his peers, only to have objective critique escort him back to obscurity. The academic community - those editing processes, peer-reviewed publications, teaching assistant and student relationships - indicates that even Kant’s notion of courage is not enough as one matures; one can easily become an intellectual guardian critiquing the next generation. There is an interesting case of Friedrich Nietzsche and Richard Wagner. Once a loyal audience of Wagner’s complex operas,

6 Why Man Creates. (hereafter cited in text)

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Nietzsche grew disillusioned to his fellow countryman’s ideas on the creation of music and other theoretical concepts. In The Case of Wagner: A Musician’s Problem (1888), Nietzsche lists his grievances, sometimes with lacerating absurdity. His primary point of contention with Wagner is the latter’s recycling of the theme of salvation. “Someone always wants to be saved in his operas,” Nietzsche laments, culminating a critique of Wagner’s most famous opera “The Ring”, with “it is Wagner himself who is saved.”7 One explanation of this central concern is Nietzsche’s disagreement over faith and the limitations of human responsibility, but this is, of course, another discussion. Furthermore, Nietzsche finds Wagner’s titanic efforts to be motivated by “dramatic effect”, in which talent and musicality are subordinated under the distraction of theatrical ruses (Nietzsche, 44). Wagner also wrote many reviews or primers to his own works in order to provide intellectual guidance to sustain interest from his audience. His romanticization of the German man is often cited as inspiration for subsequent Nazi discourse, and his extensive use of the musical device leitmotif (a short melody that is attributed to a particular character) was seen by Nietzsche as a cheap way of recycling characters and narratives and exhaustively maintaining the audiences’ attention. The icing on the cake is the passage where Nietzsche describes the aftermath of enduring such torment; he describes the Wagnerian leitmotif “as an ideal toothpick, an opportunity of ridding one’s self of what remains of one’s meal” (Nietzsche, 37). So what happens when creativity is not enough? Can one now honestly divert introspection despite such profound disappointment? What if creativity is just a long-term distraction to divert from the pessimism of life in general? Arthur Schopenhauer seems to believe life is incredibly tragic. In On the Sufferings of the World (1850) what is more painful than accepting the pessimism of life, the understanding that one has no alternative between having “time continually pressing upon [him], like a taskmaster with a whip” and that “misery of boredom.”8 To increase his personal pleasure, Schopenhauer notes that “man has intentionally added to the number and pressure of his needs; hence luxury in all its forms”, and as modern capitalism has proven and university education has reinforced, it is simply never

7 Nietzsche, The Case of Wagner: A Musician’s Problem, 22, 25. (hereafter cited in text)8 Schopenhauer, The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer: Studies in Pessimism, 6. (hereafter cited in

text)

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enough (Schopenhauer, 9). Nothing in the end stands against time - not the human, nor his creativity. There will always be dissatisfaction, a unified cry for more, a consensual desire for something new. Thus, for Schopenhauer, “life is a task to be done.” And amongst such futile observations, Schopenhauer writes perhaps the most heartbreaking line in human thought, asking “would not a man rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation as to spare it the burden of existence?” (Schopenhauer, 7) There are some educational and personal practices that can aggravate mental stress. The timing of assignments within an academic term is either evenly spread or concentrated around one period of time when exams, papers, and other creative assignments are all due. Couple this with the fact that studying consistently takes a tremendous amount of conditioned, personal discipline. Bad study habits (such as procrastination and energetic accumulation of various commitments) will not only eventually lead to mental anxiety and even physical illness, but it is this very risk-taking that is somehow stimulating; the contemporary student views Schopenhauer’s boredom as not just miserable, but also as a sign that one is falling behind. The contemporary student, with curricula vitae and professional profiles (such as those on LinkedIn) readily available, is habituated to seeing accomplishments rather than the contents and discontents of the process of creativity. There are not enough opportunities to engage with those who critique, and no discourse or dialogue in response. Many students do not properly take advantage of office hours, but in their defense, the schedule of assignments and grading does not always permit the student to learn from his or her mistakes. In the most frank sense, the term just ends. Finally, a centerpiece of discountenance from both social conditioning and narcissistic projection is the fear of saying “I don’t know” or “I don’t understand”. On the one hand, the historical, academic achievements provide the contemporary student with a solid foundation of knowledge. On the other, there is again the perpetual dissatisfaction with not being able to grasp knowledge beyond us. Man has sailed the high seas without knowing whether or not he would fall off, was propelled into space without knowing whether he would return, and continues to live fruitful lives despite not understanding some of the basic metaphysics of being. We can finally ask the question now: to create must we know? Is not the impetus of creativity a wanting to know more?

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Why Man Creates ends with the contemporary edit of Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am.” Through Descartes’ reasoning, one could be skeptical of everything except for that very process of doubt, or that process of critical thinking. The external world thus becomes an illusion, and the only proof of our own existence is in our ability and application of thought. After the light dims as the scholar concedes to the unknown, a series of nostalgic images flash before the viewer’s eyes as one is enlightened by the narration:

Men have struggled against time, against decay, against destruction, against death.Some have cried out in torment and agony, some have fought with arrogance and fierce pride.Some challenge the gods, matching power with power.Some have celebrated life.Some have burned with faith.Some have spoken in voices we know longer understand.Some have spoken eloquently.Some have spoken inarticulately, some haltingly.Some have been almost mute.Yet among all the variety of human experience, a thread of connection, a common mark can be seen.That urge to look into oneself and out to the world and say, this is what I am, I am unique, I am here, I am. (Why Man Creates)

Conclusion: On potential

As the philosophical concepts are brought to a close, it is time to return to the beginning. There has been a deliberate delay in explaining just why creativity is a burden, and what these consolations of philosophy actually are. Creativity is considered a burden simply because, at this stage in life, it is mandated by the university environment. Many students (although with today’s economy, this is in doubt) believe that entering the workforce may alleviate some of the restrictions of tertiary education as not every occupation mandates individual innovation. Because we are constantly stimulated to do better, understand more, and create something different, our mental cathexis is focused on creativity, putting mental health and soundness on hold. A good half-decade may be dedicated to this process, term

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after term, from one class to another, as we are always in battle over maintaining individuality amongst the proliferation of stimuli, past academic achievements and scholarly critique. Creativity, what is our “mark” in this world, also changes with time and globalization. Ingrid Leman Stefanovic, former Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy, explores that “truly creative thinking may have less to do with an interior search within oneself for originality than a rethinking of our relationship with the world.”9 Oddly, what frees us seems to eventually alienate us. This is not even necessarily a bad thing. So what about these consolations? From Herder and Simmel’s observations on the differentiation of stimuli and the tensions between subjectivity and objectivity, we achieve awareness of each existence amongst many. From Herder and Kant’s observations on freedom, maturity, and the spheres of reason and intelligence in human existence, we realize that we owe each other the tolerance of realizing such personal freedom and maturity. From the critical and pessimistic spirits of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, through critique, revision, and disappointment, we must learn to remain humble and open to opportunity as we accept that the aggregate of our creative processes will outlive us, perpetually inspiring and evolving with future generations. Perhaps the greatest tests are mental and creative endurance, and life mandates us to find victory in both simultaneously. Contemporary legal scholar and philosopher James Boyd White notes “that we have in this world only shifting sea and sky and wind,” and the mature response is “not to lament the loss of fixity, but to learn to sail” (Stefanovic, 73). Despite alluding anachronistically, Simmel would agree. In “the totality of historical life to which we belong - it is not our task to complain or to condone but only to understand” (Simmel, 19). Finally, to reconcile creativity with the topic of mental health and soundness, the university and the individual must be able to implement policies and behaviors that simultaneously sustain the rigor of creativity but establish understanding, and particularly tolerance of the various methods and personal freedoms in treating, disclosing, and working with mental unsoundness. We trade honesty for knowledge, and mental health for that overdrive of creativity. Must we give in for the sake of time, efficiency, and saving face, to repression of unhealthy mental processes so we may only externally bask in Plato’s light? They say that this is the best time of our lives, but best does not mean

9 Stefanovic, “Charting a Creative Course,” 65. (hereafter cited in text)

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happiest, most successful, or even the most stable. It is only a time when we are the most aware of our potentials in accretion and a time when tolerance and humility allow us to work around those remaining limitations. Intellectual creativity is bereft of scarcity and society will continue to project proliferations of stimuli and constraints on the individual, but for the time being, for the perpetually fleeting now, we learn, we feel, and we endure in good company.

Works Cited

Adorno, Theodor. “Minima Moralia.” Accessed March 5, 2013 at: http://www.rarre.org/ documents/Adorno/Minima%20Moralia.pdf

Akiskal, Hagop S and Kareen K. Akiskal. “In search of Aristotle: Temperament, human nature melancholia, creativity and eminence.” Journal of Affective Disorders, 100 (2007): 1-6.

Kant, Immanuel. “What is Enlightenment?” In What is Enlightenment? Eighteenth-Century Answer and Twentieth-Century Questions. Edited by James Schmidt, 58-64. Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1996

Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Case of Wagner: A Musician’s Problem. Translated by. Anthony M. Ludovici. Edinburgh and London: T.N. Foulis, 1911

Runte, Roseann. “On the Value of Wisdom and the Power of Knowledge.” In On Higher Education, Thoughts and Reflections on the University Experience. Edited by David Nam, 21-28. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000.

Schopenhauer, Arthur. The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer: Studies in Pessimism. Translated by T. Bailey Saunders. Carlisle: The Pennsylvania State University, 2005

Simmel, Georg. “The Metropolis and Mental Life.” In The Blackwell City Reader. Edited by Gary Bridge and Sophie Watson, 11-19. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2002.

Stefanovic, Ingrid Leman. “Charting a Creative Course.” In On Higher Education, Thoughts and Reflections on the University Experience. Edited by David Nam, 65-74. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000.

Sweet, Dennis. “The Birth of The Birth of Tragedy.” Journal of the History of Ideas, 60 (1999): 345-359.

Tischner, Józej, J.M. Zucinski, George F. McLean. The Philosophy of Person: Solidarily and Cultural Creativity. Washington, D.C.: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 1994

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von Herder, Johann Gottfried. “Treatise on the Origin of Language (1772).” In Herder: Philosophical Writings. Edited by Michael N. Forster, 65-166. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Weismann, Arcache Catherine and Sylvie Tordjman. “Relationships between Depression and High Intellectual Potential. Depression Research and Treatment, (2012): 1-8.

SARAH DANRUO WANG

Sarah Danruo Wang is a third year University College student studying international relations, philosophy, and fine art history. She has previously lived in Beijing, Ottawa, the San Francisco Bay Area, and the Greater Vancouver Area. Currently, she is the managing editor for The Attaché Journal of International Affairs and Society and Its Transformations, Director of Compliance Studies at the G8 Research Group, and Junior Research Fellow at the Atlantic Council of Canada. No longer addicted to YouTube, she is currently diversifying her procrastination outlets in more legitimate venues such as local gallery openings and concerts at the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.

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MCLUHAN, CONTEMPORARY MEDIA CULTURE AND MENTALHEALTH

LAUREN DINELEY

The works and theories of Marshall McLuhan are predicated on the idea that media effects society and vice versa – that the two are inextricably linked. This paper explores this idea and its application to the contemporary moment in relation to mental health among students in the university. As media become more accessible and demanding – even all consuming – society adapts in an effort to work with or even mimic these developments. In the case of the university, parallels can be drawn between the immediacy and pressures associated with media and the seemingly ever increasing stress amongst students which can, and often do, lead to more serious, long-term mental illnesses.

Marshall McLuhan, famed media theorist and author of such works as The Gutenberg Galaxy and Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, claims that media affects society and vice versa. By appropriating that point of view, one can make the assertion that as we – society and the culture associated with it – move further and further into what McLuhan refers to as the “electric age,” changes in the norms and practices of society take place accordingly. These changes then return to affect the creation and expansion of media in the cyclical nature of the media-society relationship.10 Although the changes that have taken place have arguably led to increased knowledge and a greater sense of community, the electric age of media has modified “the forms of experience and of mental outlook and of expression”

10 McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy, 1. (hereafter cited in text)

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in our contemporary society, in the same vein as the changes that took place with coming of the phonetic alphabet and print culture (The Gutenberg Galaxy, 2). In other words, one can draw parallels between the plurality of media in the electric age – an ever-increasing connectedness to these media and a return to what McLuhan has called “tribal culture”, resulting in a loss of self-autonomy, individualism and intensifying the conditions for success – and the resulting proliferation of mental health issues (The Gutenberg Galaxy, 29). This combinatory explosion of media is constantly expanding to meet the needs of society and society’s seemingly incessant need to create new media. Therefore, there are now media that aid in virtually everything that men (and women) once did on their own. This includes media for transportation, entertainment and social interaction as well as the acquisition and retention of knowledge. This proliferation and plurality of media has not only led to its use for practically all human activities, but it has also created an almost complete reliance on media to accomplish said activities. In the words of McLuhan: “in the electric age, we wear all of mankind as an extension of our skin.”11 McLuhan looks predominantly at how media affects society – understanding our reliance on media in the electrical age to be a hazard in that it has had a negative effect on the individualism constructed during the Gutenberg era through print culture. What McLuhan fails to adequately address is how society mirrors and affects media despite making the assertion that the relationship that exists between the two is symbiotic. The reason behind our reliance on media is not limited to its convenience. The conveniences and commonality of these new media have led to changes in individual and societal behaviours, conventions and expectations. The cellular phone, particularly the ‘smartphone’ and its relationship to society is perhaps the most overt exemplification of these changes. In most present-day, western cultures, the majority of people have cell phones, if not smartphones such as those produced by Apple (the iPhone), Blackberry and Android. These phones, by extending human interaction, keep the user constantly connected to social media networks like Facebook and Twitter. Individuals are always able to check their e-mail and remain easily accessible via text message or phone call at all hours of the day. The role of this media – keeping society constantly in contact – has led to changes in practices and conventions in our culture. In the contemporary moment, being

11 McLuhan, Understanding Media, 47. (hereafter cited in text)

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open to contact is a requirement, immediacy is an imperative and the stresses that come along with this level of engagement are considered the norm for all active members of society from students to those in the workforce. McLuhan considers this constantly connected culture to be a return to the “tribal.” Though in using this term McLuhan means to suggest a culture that focuses on the collective rather than the individual, the terminology can easily be misinterpreted due to its racist connotations (The Gutenberg Galaxy, 29). This suggests regression to a primitive culture akin to that of Walter Ong’s “primary orality”, a completely oral culture that is entirely communal in nature because there is no other way to confirm, ‘record’ or share knowledge other than to speak that knowledge to one another.12 Based on this interpretation of McLuhan’s ideas surrounding the electric age as a return to a past system, one can make the argument that ‘tribal culture’ is not a completely appropriate term or explanation for the culture of the electric age. It is far more fitting and accurate to understand the new culture of electric media as a greater connectedness or sense of community and an increased ease of communication that features a combination of new brands of collectivism and individualism. These are very different from those which existed in oral and print culture because the new media that have been developed for and in the electrical age have affected society in equally new and different ways. This culture is a hybrid of the collective and the individual. However, the coexistence of the two takes away something from each. The collective nature of the electric age is negative and somewhat oppressive and the media that have instigated or necessitated such a culture have become essential to human life. This much is illustrated by the aforementioned example of the cellar phone or ‘smartphone’. As a result of the increased interconnectedness and the consequent enslavement to media, the individualism of the electric age is somewhat diminished as well. It is a form of individualism with seemingly less self-autonomy or, at the very least, an altered form of self-autonomy – one that is very different from that which existed in print culture, as media during that age did not assert the culture of immediacy and enslavement that electrical media do. This loss of individualism and self-autonomy in the electric age takes several forms, all of which are interrelated, suggesting that

12 Ong, Orality and Literacy, 5. (hereafter cited in text)

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it is more or less inevitable based on the current relationship between media and society. The greatest driving force of the electric age and its diminished sense of self-autonomy is the importance of media in the lives of individuals – in other words, the control media that, via the culture it promotes, has over the masses. Society’s reliance on media is somewhat of a vicious circle. We have become so invested in the media of the electric age because of its plurality and diversity, thereby becoming victim to the culture of immediacy and stress it promotes. At the same time, it is this very culture that has us using and continuing to use these media. By virtue of the plurality of media, and the need for media in contemporary culture, individuals within society are constantly extending themselves further and further into numerous media sources at any given moment in time. McLuhan seems to fear the nature of this extension in that it can lead to what he calls “amputation” and “fragmentation” (Understanding Media, 42, The Gutenberg Galaxy, 13). ‘Amputation’ refers to the loss of one extension and the skills associated with it by replacing it with another extension. ‘Fragmentation’ refers to the division of senses, and describes the media’s potential effects on the “human psyche” (The Gutenberg Galaxy, 32). McLuhan believes that the high degree of extension into media, and the expectation that accompanies it, is detrimental to the individual because it overstimulates their senses, altering “sense ratios” and causing ‘amputation’ and ‘fragmentation’ to the point of becoming “numb” (The Gutenberg Galaxy 4, 153). Not only does conscription to the culture of electric media alter one’s self-autonomy through force or obligation, but society’s use of media and its effects – over stimulation, amputation and fragmentation – are detrimental to the individual’s ability to function as an individual, Self-autonomy is a crucial element of that ability. The best way to understand the concepts of overstimulation, amputation, fragmentation and numbness is by invoking the example of multitasking. Though multitasking is possible, one or more tasks are inevitably not pursued to their full potential. For instance, a situation in which one is having a conversation in person and simultaneously via text message, the person often misses what the other is saying or is unable to talk while extended into their device. This is because the visual and tactile senses used when texting become so overstimulated that the senses stimulated when talking or listening are diminished. To use McLuhan’s terminology and concepts, the sense ratios are altered

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to favour the visual and tactile over the oral and auditory, resulting in fragmentation. Amputation occurs in extreme instances of this situation, whereby one becomes so reliant on the media of the cell phone for communication that they become unable to communicate effectively in person. The expectation to be extended into several media at any given point in time is virtually a given in contemporary society, especially one in which new electric media have cultivated the previously described culture of immediacy and constant connectedness. Take for example the number of occasions on any given day in which one is asked to make sure her phone is turned off. Announcements such as these are made frequently in our everyday lives – before film screenings and at the beginnings of classes and lectures. In either of these situations we are already extended into media, whether it be into the screen of a theatre, a pen and paper, or a laptop. Yet there must always be conscious and explicit reminders for individuals to resist from being extended into several media at one time, and to focus on the matter at hand. Announcements such as these are both paradoxical and ironic in a society that asks for a certain level of extension and connectedness at all times. The consequences of this culture of immediacy and constant connectedness, produced by the nature and plurality of electric media, have manifested themselves in society through the emergence of numerous mental health issues of varying degrees of severity. Of particular interest is the way these issues have affected the lives of university students; the culture of the electric age seems to have had an immense impact on these students as the pressures – institutional and internal – have increased. In a 2009 study conducted by the Psychological and Counselling Services (CAPS) office at the University of Toronto, 89% of respondents claimed that they had experienced school related anxiety in the last year; over 40% claimed to have experienced a panic attack, an additional 22% reported a mental break of some kind, 6% had suicidal thoughts and 1% attempted to commit suicide.13 Janine Robb, the Executive Director of Health and Wellness at U of T St. George, credits these terrifying statistics with the pressures of contemporary culture, specifically citing electronic media that have facilitated these pressures. Robb spoke specifically about the expectation of constant availability via the cellular phone, explaining that because of such devices there is simply no opportunity

13 Robb, “The Crisis of Mental Illness on Campus.” (hereafter cited in text)

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to escape academic, extra-curricular and social pressures. As a part of society, the university seems to have internalized and appropriated the culture of the electric age by imposing exacting standards on its students. The university subscribes to a culture that dictates that students need to do incredibly well academically in order to succeed once they have graduated. Yet, the institution makes it difficult to do so by demanding certain class averages for many courses and consistently making decisions that make it difficult for students such as scheduling the first year math and physics exams one day after the other (Robb). Furthermore, the university and the market that graduating students enter into expect students to go beyond the classroom and become involved in student life and work, whether it be a part-time job in order to be able to afford to attend school, or an internship to gain practical experience in order to secure employment after they have completed their education. The University of Toronto is particularly hypocritical in this sense; their expectations are consonant with this trend, yet there are relatively few jobs on campus and the university does not offer credit for internships, which are often a requirement from the potential employer. Robb cites anxiety as the most common mental manifestation of these pressures. He maintains that such anxiety is necessary because it draws the subject’s attention to the pressures and the toll it is taking on him, both mentally and physically. This accords with McLuhan’s ideas on how to counteract one’s extension into media and the potential consequences of fragmentation, amputation and numbness: to become aware of how media affects both the individual and society, and to learn how one’s self-autonomy in the greater culture is altered by the changes in thought and action that media promote. This was a goal that McLuhan strongly believed could be accomplished through study.

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Works Cited

McLuhan, Marshall. The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man. Toronto: The University of Toronto Press, 1962.

McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extension of Man. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964.

Ong, Walter. Literacy and Orality: The Technologizing of the Word. New York: Routledge, 1982.

Robb, Janine. “The Crisis of Mental Illness on Campus – Why Diagnoses Are on the Rise.” Minding Our Minds: Mental Health in University. Victoria College, Toronto, ON. 1 November 2012.

LAUREN DINELEY

Lauren Dineley has just completed her third year at Victoria College in the University of Toronto pursuing a Bachelor of Arts with a major in cinema studies and minors in book and media studies and history. As co-curricular to her studies, Lauren is one of the executive producers for the Victoria College Drama Society’s 2013-2014 season and sits as a student representative on Victoria University’s Board of Regents.

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COLLECTIVE ACTION: FRAMES OF OCCUPY

JENNIFER GALLEY

Collective action is often the outcome of societal unrest. Unrest from a current system, structure, injustice or lack of available resources. Using a frame analyses approach, this paper seeks to objectively examine the collective action frames of the Occupy Movement. In making meaning of social movements - in this case, Occupy - the degree to which ‘frames’ of understanding are developed determines the level of success a movement will have in mobilizing its constituents. Sociologist Erving Goffman used the word frame to refer to “definitions of a situation [that] are built up in accordance with principles of organization which govern events- at least social ones- and our subjective involvement in them”. This paper will analyze how the Occupy Movements ability to establish ‘frame resonance’ through diagnostic framing, prognostic framing, and motivational framing led to mass mobilization. In using social media to communicate meaningful cultural symbols, frame creators were able to produce and align collective action frames with Occupy proponents perception of society.

I can only suggest that he who would combat false consciousness and waken people to their true interests has much to do, because the sleep is very deep -Erving Goffmam

Perception dictates how we experience the world around us. Internal dialogue manifests into external action. Perhaps this sounds overly simplified, but we must first think about doing something

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before we proceed to do it. Given this dualistic understanding of experience, how can we unpack why an individual takes part in a social movement? How does a particular message resonate to such an extent that they are willing to stand for a cause? Moreover, how is meaning created in social movements to compel constituents to take part in solving the problem through a form of action that further mobilizes the collective? In assessing any situation – in this case a social movement – an individual must initially ponder: “What is it that’s going on here?”14 Successful movements motivate collective participation by triggering a sense of meaning through framing efforts (Goffman, 8); social movements must frame an issue to identify who is responsible for the current situation and pose possible solutions to its problem. Moreover, the effective framing of a movement needs to stimulate the cognitive schemata of the majority so that they direct their attention to a set of particular issues – as a social movement often has multiple overlapping rational – and perceive these issues as personally relevant. To further complicate the matter, social movement frames must be convincing. Social movements are essentially meaning producers, and only through proper initial framing can they give the people power to become change makers. This paper will explore the Occupy Movement through the research method of frame analysis, most notably attributed to sociologist, Erving Goffman. In unpacking how the current and ongoing Occupy Movement is framed, we can identify how people experience this particular social phenomenon. In other words, by deeming “events or occurrences meaningful, frames function to organize experience and guide action, whether individual or collective.”15 The Occupy Movement will be used as a case study to explore research in social movement theory as it pertains to frame analysis. This paper seeks to objectively identify the various collective action frames currently associated with the Occupy Movement, while acknowledging that these frames are fluid and fluctuating because of ongoing mobilization. The Occupy Movement is not a single snap shot in time, conveniently framed to mark its boundaries. Occupation is now and tomorrow; it is an indefinite ideology and belief system. In this sense, we cannot quite capture what the frame contains or conveys at one specific point in time because “the frame does not hold anything

14 Goffman, Frame Analysis, 8. (hereafter cited in text)15 Snow, Frame Alignment Processes, Micromobilization, and Movement Participation, 464.

(hereafter cited in text)

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together in one place, but itself becomes a kind of perpetual breakage, subject to temporal logic by which it moves from place to place. As the frame constantly breaks from its context, this self-breaking becomes part of the very definition.”16 In attempting to capture the elusive nature of Occupy frames, this paper will look at “the structure of experience individuals have at any moment in their social lives” (Goffman, 13) by identifying how meaning is constructed. I will explore the Occupy Movement through a frame analysis lens by first laying the foundation of frames and social movement terminology as it pertains to culture and schemata. Secondly, I will examine Adbusters’ use of social media to communicate primary frameworks of the Occupy Movement and the mobilization facilitated by these frames. The last section of this essay will apply the work of social movement theorists David Snow and Robert Benford. Known for their application of frame analysis to social movements, this paper will apply their construction of the “three core framing tasks”17 to the Occupy Movement: diagnostic framing, prognostic framing, and motivational framing. Snow and Benford posit that the degree to which these three framing tasks are attended to, “richly developed and interconnected” determines the successful mobilization of a movement (Snow & Bedord, 199). This paper’s goal is to explore and evaluate the framing efforts of the Occupy Movement and the meaning that has been constructed from these frames. In this examination, we can attempt to understand the experience of participants, critics and observers. occupiers, opposers, and observers of Occupy.

Social Movement Frames & “Schemata of Interpretation” In dissecting the activities of the Occupy Movement, it is critical to lay the foundation of terminology that will be used throughout the paper. There is a rich language of social movement frames that will assist in articulating the question: “What is going on with the Occupy Movement?” Indeed, there is no one single action going on under the umbrella of ‘Occupy’; it is a global movement, largely popularized and consistently active in North America. For these reasons, this paper will reference OccupyWallStreet (OWS),

16 Bulter, Frames of War, 10. (hereafter cited in text)17 Snow & Benford, Ideology, Frame Resonance, and Participant Mobilization, 200. (hereafter

cited in text)

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as it is the initial ‘Occupy’ location because there is a plethora of information surrounding this location. Identifying the diverse range of Occupy frames around the world is too grand a task for this paper and would be more fitting for the breadth of a novel. In any case, the very definition of “Occupy” will be examined as a frame. Goffman used the word frame to refer to “definitions of a situation [that] are built up in accordance with principles of organization which govern events- at least social ones- and our subjective involvement in them” (Goffman, 11). Take the word “Occupy” for example; “Occupy” not only defines the situation but governs events by explicitly suggesting that individuals take direct action through occupation. This strategic frame will be further explored later in the paper. Beyond the all-encompassing yet analogous nature of a frame, we are seeking to pinpoint the primary frameworks of the Occupy Movement. If “a primary framework is one that is seen as rendering what would otherwise be a meaningless aspect of the scene into something that is meaningful” (Goffman, 21), then we must understand how meaning comes about. In an effortful attempt to limit defining so that we do not get sidetracked and entangled in terms that have too much bearing (Goffman, 11), leaving no breathing room for creative elaboration, this paper will leave the endless rabbit chase of defining terms to this foundational section. To explain how subjective meaning comes about, it seems only fitting to refer to George Mead’s understanding of its construction, as social movements are a collective comprised of many individual relations.18 Mead suggests that “meaning arises and lies within the field of the relation between the gesture of a given human organism and the subsequent behavior of this organism as indicated to another human organism by that gesture...so that meaning is given or stated in terms of a response” (Mead, 76). In this understanding, a social movement is not a movement unless the gesture for collective action is received by the targeted audience, where their very response indicates an established meaning. For example, if the media messages deployed by Adbusters for public occupation were ignored, then the occupy hashtag (ie. #OCCUPYWALLSTREET) – as one framework for instance – would have been rendered meaningless by followers and therefore no action would have been taken. But the response of occupation did take place, which means the hashtag #OCCUPYWALLSTREET contains meaning for a substantial

18 Mead, Mind, Self & Society. (hereafter cited in text)

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number of individuals. It is the response that implies a “schemata of interpretation” in the individual (Goffman, 21). In this instance, we can assume that this framework was effective. Frames exist in culture. If a frame “contains, conveys, and determines what is seen” (Butler, 10), then cultural symbols are the substance that make up the frame. Generally speaking, proponents of the Occupy Movement exist in a culture fabricated by social media, conspicuous consumption, and democratic sentiments but these elements of social life are the substance of Occupy’s primary framework. North Americans experience these elements in their daily lives. In this sense, using familiar cultural symbols in the framing of social movements has the potential to create consensus and agreement among constituents. This concept is often referred to as “frame resonance” in frame analysis literature (Snow 1986, Snow & Benford 1988, Noakes & Johnston 2005). Frame resonance is key for mobilization; Occupy can be said to have resonated with constituents enough that a portion of these activists became Occupiers of public space. Therefore successful social movement frames must consist of many cultural components at any given point in time in order to ensure resonance with participants. This includes “values, beliefs, goals, rhetoric, ideological elements, and other resources from the cultural tool kit such as slogans, tactics, motivations, portraits of ‘us’ and ‘them’, prognosis, and diagnoses.”19 Framing efforts are aligned with the notion that “culture [acts] as a ‘tool kit’ of symbols, stories, rituals, and world views, which people may use in varying configurations to solve different kinds of problems”.20 From this conceptualization of “culture as a toolkit”, we can come to understand how frame producers of the Occupy movement use culture to attempt to solve the problem of corporate irresponsibility and mass inequality.21

Frame Makers: Adbusters & Social Media

If frames use culture to trigger cognitive schema – inducing a

19 Noakes and Johnston, Frames of Protest: A Road Map to a Perspective, 12. (hereafter cited in text)

20 Swindler, Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategie, 274. (hereafter cited in text)21 motivations of the Occupy Movement are not limited to these two elements of social life and

the plethora of motives will be expanded upon further in this paper. These two particular themes emerged with the original Occupy framework and have remained central arguments in the ideology of Occupy. These frames resonate.

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sense of meaning and therefore creating frame resonance in movement participants – then it is critical to make sense of the source in which a frame is produced and communicated. Successful mobilization is supported by effective communication. The messages communicated via social media during the initial mobilization of the Occupy Movement are an example of “the interaction of shared cognitive structures and supra-individual cultural phenomena activat[ing] those structures to varying degrees”.22 Attempting to identify the ‘starting point’ of the Occupy Movement is a difficult task as it is essentially attempting to identify the beginning of an ideology or thought pattern. Ideologies are not necessarily demarcated by clear boundaries. As frames are carriers of beliefs, ideologies, and logics, social movement frameworks often reflect the belief system of the producer. For the purposes of specificity, this paper will focus on one of the more strategic frame makers of the Occupy Movement: the Canadian not-for-profit, anti-consumerist magazine, Adbusters. According to their website, they are “a global network of culture jammers and creatives working to change the way information flows, the way corporations wield power, and the way meaning is produced in our society.”23 Their self-definition implies the breaking of old frames to create new ones. The Adbusters network identify as “culture jammers”, implying a manipulation and reconfiguration of popular cultural meanings and repertoires. This reconceptualization of mainstream cultural forms is necessary in the process of mobilization because “media frames interact with and influence the construction of social movements, official, and individual frames” (Noakes and Johnston, 19). On July 13, editor and co-founder of the magazine Kalle Lasn and his colleagues created a new hash tag on Twitter “#OCCUPYWALLSTREET” and designed a poster showing a ballerina dancing on the back of a muscular sculptured bul, near Wall Street in Manhattan24 [See Pg. 21]. This unusual image appeared throughout their web-content and their print magazines, stating “#OCCUPYWALLSTREET. September 17. Bring tent.” This framework was designed to facilitate inquiry and contrast, “the juxtaposition of the capitalist dynamism of the bull with the Zen stillness of the ballerina. In the background, protesters [are] emerging from a cloud of tear gas. The violence had a highly

22 DiMaggio, Culture and Cognition, 264. (hereafter cited in text)23 Adbusters, 2012. (hereafter cited in text)24 Yarley, The Branding of the Occupy Movement. (hereafter cited in text)

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aestheticized, dreamlike quality.”25 Moreover, this dualistic imagery compels individuals to “override programmed modes of thought to think critically and reflexively” (DiMaggio, 271). The instance of inquiry inspires individuals to reach into their schematic toolkits to process information and understand experience and social norms. This initial poster created by Adbusters could be said to have ‘sparked’ the Occupy Movement. It creates a framework that is ambiguous and inconsistent with our schema of understanding images of objects and the relations among them. The use of cultural tools in this framework –“slogans, tactics, motivations, portraits of ‘us’ and ‘them’, prognosis, and diagnoses” – grabs the attention of potential participants. As “psychological research suggests that people shift into deliberative modes of thought relatively easily when their attention is attracted to a problem” (DiMaggio, 271), we can assume that in this instance, due to the rapid mobilization and occupation in New York following the dissemination of this poster, the frame resonance was achieved. Although the strategic use of cultural repertoires in framing social movements may grab the attention of individuals, frame makers must have a large enough network and available resources to be successful in establishing frame resonance. For the purpose of understanding frame analysis as it informs the production of frames in the Occupy Movement, we will refer momentarily to the New Institutionalism perspective. How did Adbusters ‘spark’ such rapid mobilization? How did they popularize a framework containing ideology, belief, opinion, and schemata to such a wide audience? How did they create a counter discourse in a highly structured and institutionalized society? As Adbusters Media Foundation exists as an enduring structure within the cluster of social media institutions, it seems only fitting to attempt to answer these questions from an institutional perspective. Adbusters describes itself as “a global network of artists, activists, writers, pranksters, students, educators and entrepreneurs who want to advance the new social activist movement of the information age” (Adbusters). In other words, they have a heterogeneous network of resources available to them at any given moment in time. With expansive and mixed networks comes a larger cultural toolkit from which to selecm. According to Ronald Burt, “opinion and behavior are more homogeneous within than between groups, so people connected across groups are more familiar

25 Schwartz, Pre-Occupied: The Origins and Future of Occupy Wall Street. (hereafter cited in text)

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with alternative ways of thinking and behaving, which gives them more options to select from and synthesize.”26 In this perspective, “new ideas emerge from selection and synthesis across the structural holes between groups” (Burt, 350). Considering Adbusters is a wide-ranging network of individuals, we can infer that they act as a sort of “brokerage across structural holes” which in turn increases their social capital (the advantage of available resources) and likelihood of thinking up“good idea”. This line of thought – Adbusters as brokerage between otherwise unconnected groups, organization, and individuals – is parallel to what Snow refers to as frame bridging. Because Adbusters Media Foundation has high social capital, they are able to facilitate the “linkage of two or more ideological congruent but structurally unconnected frames regarding a particular issue or problem” (Snow & Benford, 467). The use of social media platforms during the beginning stages of the Occupy Movement, such as Twitter, became an essential tool to merge, share, and bridge scattered frames. In this initial step of frame bridging, the enduring structure of Adbusters was able to connect with cohorts of the population that were not assembled under specific rules of institutionalism. According to resource mobilization theory, “society provides the infrastructure which movement industries and other industries utilize [which] include communication media and expense, levels of affluence, degree of access to institutional centre, preexisting networks, and occupational structure and growth.” 27 Centralizing sentiment pools28 of individuals allows for the potential of a large collective with various intersecting frameworks to mobilize and find commonalities among ideologies. The dualistic design of the ballerina/bull poster, an effective hashtag on Twitter, a heterogeneous expansive network, and the structured nature of an institution with high social capital and a range of resources – all played a critical role in Adbusters successful framing of the Occupy Movement. The Internet is essential in producing frames, especially movements like Occupy which have been birthed in the information age, allowing “activists to form a collective voice by connecting previously marginalized or isolated individuals.”29

26 Burt, Structural Holes and Good Ideas, 350. (hereafter cited in text)27 McCarthy & Zald, Resource Mobilzation and Social Movements: A Partial Theory, 1217.

(hereafter cited in text)28 “refers to aggregates of individuals who share common grievance and attributional orientations,

but who lack the organizational base for expressing their discontents and for acting in pursuit of their interests” (McCarthy 1986).

29 Nimijean & Rankin, Mobizations, Protests, & Engagement, 64. (hereafter cited in text)

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Diagnostic Frames

In an individual’s attempt to situationally assess “What is it that is going on here?” they first need to identify the problem(s) that fuel the social movement. The overarching themes and grievances need to be framed in order for an individual to gain any sense of understanding of the current situation. This initial communication and recognition of primary frameworks is critical for mobilization. Referred to as diagnostic frames, these “involve identification of a problem and the attribution of blame or causality” (Snow & Benford, 200). The two initial and reoccurring concerns of the Occupy Movement are corporate greed and social inequality.30 Indeed, a plethora of concerns and grievances sprung from this original framework; the overarching cause for massive inequality is, according to the Occupy dialogue, corporate irresponsibility and lack of economic regulation. Although social movements are an amalgamation of many individual cultural schemata’s and toolkits, “the various wings or fractions of a movement tend to elevate one factor above all other possible causes as the most salient or primary one” (Snow & Benford, 200). In dissecting the conceptual framework of the Occupy Movement, the central causal factor to widespread inequality is most often attributed to being economic. This leads to secondary causal concepts such as corporatization and justice. In agreeing that widespread inequality – large scale global poverty – is caused by an inefficient economic system, Occupy participants mobilized around this common cause. With the consensus that economy is the problem, participants can take plight on a variety of issues falling under this umbrella. Collective action is facilitated through establishing a general enough diagnostic frame which pinpoints the problem and allocates blame In this we can see how “an increase in the extent or intensity of deprivation and the development of ideology occur prior to the emergence of social movement phenomena” (McCarthy & Zald, 1214). This understanding of social movement frames is parallel to Marx’s notion of material reality; he states that “life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life.”31 According to Marx, human thought (such as a framework or interpretation of schema) precedes action (mobilization of a social movement for instance). In any case, an individual may not be entirely

30 Dobnik, Wall Street Protesters: We’re in for the Long Haul. (hereafter cited in text)31 Marx, The German Ideology, 155. (hereafter cited in text)

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conscious of the diagnostic frame during the time of mobilization, but the eventual recognition of a problem and its causes are necessary for resonance and sustainability. Strategic diagnostic frames can blatantly be communicated via language and dialogue. The proper use of language in social movements can be a powerful tool in creating diagnostic and prognostic frames. Yet contrary to its successful application, language also has the potential to constrain frame resonance and sustainability. As “culture [is] embedded in language and everyday practices, [it] constrains people’s capacity to imagine alternatives to existing arrangements” (DiMaggio, 268). This creates an unpredictable platform for frame makers, as the language used to communicate a frame can halt the social movement before it even begins. In reference to the Occupy Movement at the initial point of its activation (September 2011), we can assume that the primary diagnostic frames were successful. The use of generalized yet tailored language, like OCCUPY_______(fill in geographical location) and a proportional slogan, “We are the 99%”, established resonance in a large number of constituents. Participants were able to personalize their Occupy frame by their physical location, at the same time feel a sense of solidarity as part of the 99 percent, who experience inequality to some degree. OccupyWallStreet identifies as “a leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions. The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%.”32 Occupy frames use cultural tools to invoke a sense of imagery and collective action in the individual. They experience being the 99 percent. The “language of the 99%” draws a line in the sand. It divides our social world into the haves and the have-nots. The conceptual structure is simple enough — one container with the minimal number of elements juxtaposed against another with the maximal inequality relative to the total amount.”33 As rhetoric is instrumental in the development of a diagnostic frame, Occupy had successfully attended to this “core framing task” initially because mass mobilization had been executed. Consequently, this movement has substantial presence in social media, perhaps due to the capability of “a certain frame [to] provoke people to think about a social issue in a new way” (DiMaggio, 266).

32 occupywallst.org/. (hereafter cited in text)33 Brewer, Strategic Frames of the Occupy Movement. (hereafter cited in text)

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Prognostic Frames

Along with a diagnostic frame to communicate a social problem and allocate blame, successful social movements must take framing efforts a step further to enlist responses to the problem. This proposal is referred to as prognostic frames and the “purpose is to not only suggest solutions to the problem but also to identify strategies, tactics, and targets. What is to be done is thereby specified” (Snow & Benford, 200). Perhaps the first solution to the problem is to rethink and re-conceptualize the cultural frames that exist in our daily lives. The OccupyWallStreet General Assembly suggests this reanalysis of society in their “Statement of Autonomy”, proclaiming that “any organization is welcome to support us with the knowledge that doing so will mean questioning your own institutional frameworks of work and hierarchy and integrating our principles into your modes of action.”34 The Occupy Movement advocates a peaceful, nonviolent approach to combating the economic hierarchy which they believe is causing mass inequality. Directing action to the physical occupation of public space can be considered a situational solution to draw attention to the movement. Marisa Holmes, a twenty-five-year-old anarchist and filmmaker involved with Occupy, was asked in a New Yorker article; “What should be done to remedy these grievances?” Holmes replied, “Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face; and generate solutions accessible to everyone” (Schwartz). Indeed this has been a common rhetoric throughout the Occupy Movement, but its lack of specificity to “strategies, tactics, and targets” is problematic in establishing frame resonance and movement sustainability. Frame Maker, Adbusters, noted that solutions include the following: “to have banking-industry regulations tightened, high-frequency trading banned, all the ‘financial fraudsters’ responsible for the 2008 crash arrested, and a Presidential commission formed to investigate corruption in politics” (Schwartz). It is important to note that this prognostic frame is coming from a source that implicates the economy as the main casual factor to the problem of inequality. Although this is the most salient diagnostic frame, different fractions of the Occupy Movement will target other solutions. In an attempt to interrogate “the processes by which a movement

34 OSW General Assembly. (hereafter cited in text)

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accesses cultural resources and attempts to produce interpretations that resonate with a broader constituency”35, it is important to acknowledge overlapping and intersecting prognostic frames. Different participants have solutions that will be prominent in their framing efforts and public discourse. For Occupiers who believe that the main causal factor to inequality is the irresponsibility of corporate and financial institutions, their primary solutions will be related to regulation and will work toward framing discourses and solutions to establish checks and balances in the system. For example, these participants would most likely advocate ‘The Robin Hood Tax’ as one possible solution to the problem. ‘The Robin Hood Tax’ is (2011); a tiny tax (0.05%) that would be levied on all financial market transactions in order to raise resources for fighting poverty and climate change at home and abroad. It would cover financial transactions traded through stock exchanges, futures exchanges or any other facility established for the purpose of trading (“exchange trading”) by financial market actors.36 As this solution is feasible, specific, and realistic, it has become one of the more salient prognostic frames of the Occupy Movement. Manifesting largely from economic causalities, a long list of diagnostic and prognostic frames have emerged. “The 99% Declaration” is a working document and lists the grievances and solutions in legitimizing terms which will be addressed by the 878 delegates of the National General Assembly. It is also open for the public to add and critique the current diagnostic and prognostic frames proposed [See Pg. 22 for list of grievances]. Acknowledging all participants, diagnostic and prognostic frameworks are critical to successful mobilization and ultimate societal change. This is because “shared grievances and generalized beliefs (loose ideologies) about the causes and possible means of reducing grievances are important preconditions for the emergence of a social movement in a collectivity” (McCarthy & Zald, 1214). Although these frames may be shared and understood, social movement mobilization is nothing without sufficient motivation.

35 Chester & Welsh, Social Movements: The Key Concepts, 83. (hereafter cited in text)36 robinhoodtax.ca. (hereafter cited in text)

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Motivational Frames The last core task in framing a social movement to ensure mobilization is the essential element of individual motivation. Motivational frames provide constituents with incentive and rational for engaging in corrective action (Snow & Benford, 202). Mobilization can halt or cease to exist if the “target audiences [do] not accept a movement’s motivational frame and never join a protest although they understand the diagnosis and prognosis” (Noakes & Johnston, 6). Motivational frames inspire participants to the point where meaning is established and frame resonance is achieved. Although “different interests will generate different motivational relevancies...in many cases some of those who are committed to differing points of view and focus may still be willing to acknowledge that theirs is not the official or ‘real’ one” (Goffman, 8) and embrace the motivational frames as action for the greater good. The Occupy Movement’s “rational for participation is framed” to address material needs, in one instance, which motivates participants because they want greater financial security, a less stressful life situation, and a better life potential for themselves and their family. Another motivational frame is to physically occupy and appropriate public space. Although many individuals support and agree to the diagnostic and prognostic frames of the movement, not all constituents are motivated enough to the extent that they would sleep in a tent and stop working because it contributes to the capitalist economy. However, there is a wing of the movement that is sufficiently motivated to drop the structure and safety of rules and reclaim public space, propelling the Occupy Movement with their physical presence. Although Adbusters initially intended to motivate potential participants to physically Occupy Zuccotti Park in New York with their poster campaign, their efforts sparked a series of motivational frames that exceeded physical occupation, largely consuming online media and popularized the “Occupy” language to encompass the problem, solution, and motivation. Snow and Benford suggest that “to frame any issue in terms that are inaccessible to all but a few is to reduce potential participants to spectators and make the issue non-participatory” (Snow & Benford, 204). Not all movement participants are inspired by occupation per say. The Occupy Movement remains loosely defined and ambiguous, ensuring that it does not exclude potential participants with superfluous wording. The very word “Occupy” has

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come to be malleable and transparent, motivating an individual to frame their wants and needs in their own terms. Adbusters’ use of media inspired constituents of the Occupy Movement to use social media to communicate their own motivational frames becauses it is culturally compatible. “The collective action frame and the symbols used to carry it synchronize with society’s cultural stock- and especially the ‘cultural tool kit’ of the target audience.” (Noakes & Johnston, 15). Although motivational frames are often subjective, diagnostic and prognostic frames that tackle a massive problem can become overbearing. This could be the case with the Occupy Movement, where primary frameworks call for an overhaul of the entire economic system. This “problem may be framed so cataclysmically and hopelessly, that action seems highly improbable. Such framing gives rise to a sense of fatalism” (Snow & Benford, 203). In this perspective, the “99%” need the “1%” to agree upon re-conceptualizing and restructuring the capitalist mode of production. The scope of this daunting task has already decreased mobilization in the Occupy Movement. Anthony Oberschall states that “capitalism is a process of creative destruction. Structural economic shifts undermine entire industrial sectors and the livelihood of millions.”37 Structural alterations to the current system over time are more realistic and feasible. This paper has attempted to dissect how participants of the Occupy Movement organize their experience. Deeming this social movement (or any other movement for that matter) as “successful” is subject matter for another paper. “Success” in these terms seems to be in the eye of the beholder. As previously stated, individuals find meaning in their interaction with others and different cultural symbols and repertoires. If frames use culture to carry a certain message, ideology, or reconceptualization of reality, then the proclamation of “success” depends on individual perspective. Indeed, the level of attendance and development of Snow and Benford’s “core framing tasks” is a benchmark to measure and analyze a certain degree of “success”. This focuses on the presence and absence of mobilization. On some level, the Occupy Movement has been successful in creating mass mobilization and presence in public discourse. At the very least, Occupy participants have used Occupy frames as an expression of liberation and solidarity. Here we can see how “rebellion against authorities is partly contingent on the generation and adoption of

37 Oberschall, Social Movements and Collective Action, 32. (hereafter cited in text)

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an injustice frame, a mode of interpretation that defines the actions of an authority system as unjust and simultaneously legitimates noncompliance” (Snow, 466). If frames represent cognitive structures in people’s heads, then a maintained sense of criticism and questioning towards the current economic system is perhaps all the collective action we will consistently have.

Works Cited

Adbusters. “#OCCUPYWALLSTREET.” Accessed on January 26, 2012 at: http://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/occupywallstreet

Adbusters. “About Adbusters.” Accessed on March 23, 2012 at: http://www.adbusters.org/about/adbusters

Brewer, Joe. “Strategic Frames of the Occupy Movement.” In Chaotic Ripple: A Blog, December 31, 2011. Accessed Monday April 2, 2012 at: http://www.chaoticripple.com/2011/strategic-frames-of-occupy-movement/

Burt, Ronald. “Structural Holes and Good Ideas.” American Journal of Sociology 110: 2004,349-399.

Butler, Judith. Frames of War. New York: Verso, 2009

Chester, Graeme & Welsh, Ian. “Frame Analysis.” In Social Movements: The Key Concepts. New York: Routledge, 2011

DiMaggio, Paul. “Culture and Cognition.” In Annual Review of Sociology 23: 263-287 1997.

Dobnik, Verena.“Wall Street Protesters: We’re in for the Long Haul.” In Bloomberg Businessweek, October 2, 2011.

Goffman, Erving. “Introduction,” “Primary Frameworks,” & “The Anchoring of Activity.” Pp. 1-16,21-28, 247-257 in Frame Analysis. New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1974

Marx, Karl & Engels, Friedrich. “The German Ideology.” Pp.149-155 in The Marx -Engels Reader, edited by Robert C.Tucker. New York: Norton & Company, 1978

McCarthy, John & Zald, Mayer. “Resource Mobilzation and Social Movements: A Partial Theory.” In The American Journal of Sociology 82: 1977, 1212-1241.

Mead, George. “Mind.” Pp. 75-82 in Mind, Self, and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1934

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New York City General Assembly. “Declaration of Autonomy 2011.” Accessed March 20, 2012 at: http://www.nycga.net/resources/statement-of-autonomy/.

Nimijean, Richard & Rankin, Pauline. “Can Movements ‘Move’ Online? Online Activism, Canadian Women’s Movements and the Case of Par-l.” Pp. 62-79 in Mobizations, Protests, & Engagements, edited by Marie Hammond-Callaghan and Mathew Hayday. Canada: Fernwood Publishing, 2008

Noakes, John & Johnston, Hank. “Frames of Protest: A Road Map to a Perspective.” In Frames of Protest: Social Movements and the Framing Perspective. USA: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc., 2005

Oberschall, Anthony.“Social Movements and Collective Action.” In Social Movements. New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, 1993 occupywallstreet.org. “About”. Accessed January 28, 2012 at: http://occupywallst.org/about/

Robin Hood Tax. “How it Works: 2011.” Accessed March 20, 2012 at: http://robinhoodtax.ca/howitworks

Schwartz, Mattathias. “Pre-Occupied: The Orings and Future of Occupy Wall Street.” In The New Yorker, November 28, 2011.

Snow, David et al. “Frame Alignment Processes, Micromobilization, and Movement Participation”. In American Sociological Review 51: 1986, 464-481.

Snow, David & Benford, Robert. “Ideology, Frame Resonance, and Participant Mobilization.” In International Social Movement Research 1: 1988, 197-217.

Swindler, Ann. “Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies.” In American Sociological Review 51: 1986, 273-286.

The 99% Declaration 2011.“Full Text.” Accessed March 21, 2012 at: http://www.the99declaration.org/

Yardley, William. “The Branding of the Occupy Movement.” In The New York Times, November 27, 2011

JENNIFER GALLEY

Jennifer Galley majored in Sociology and double minored in Canadian Studies and Women & Gender Studies. She is passionate about critical dialogue which aims to unpack the complexities of our society and the structures that shape our experience. The bulk of her writing takes a community-based anti-oppression perspective that ultimately seeks to inspire reflection, limit assumption and make change. Her first publication; “Framing Violence: The Masculinization of North American Security” was featured in the Women & Gender Studies academic journal, Intersections.

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J.D. SALINGER AND HAND WASHING

CARA SCHACTER

Schacter’s interest in the work of author J.D. Salinger developed alongside her Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). These tangential developments proved to be complementary. This paper discusses the unanticipated relationship that emerged between Schacter’s “Salinger Phase” and her OCD.

In grade eleven, I slept with J.D. Salinger. Specifically, I slept with Franny and Zooey. More specifically, I kept the book beside my pillow in an attempt to absorb its brilliance through osmosis. The J.D. Salinger phase is not an uncommon one. Many adolescents have fallen for Salinger’s slick narrative, italicized syllables, and judgmental characters. And while we all believe we bear an exclusive connection to Jerome David Salinger, my J.D. Salinger phase coincided with the surfacing of my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, creating an unusually unique relationship. The summer before grade eleven, the undiagnosed obsessive compulsive cleaning rituals in which I had been engaged since the beginning of high school began to, in clinical terms, “interrupt my functioning”. A year later, I would be diagnosed with severe Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). My most persistent OCD-related fear was that I would be contaminated by the essence of another person through physical contact. In other words, I feared that I could become another person by, for example, brushing up against them. Reason does not factor into an OCD mentality; rational OCD-thinking is an idealistic oxymoron. At the end of that summer before grade eleven, I bought and read Franny

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and Zooey – my first Salinger book. As OCD gained control of an ever-growing portion of my day, I developed defence mechanisms. In order to protect myself from physical contact with others, and its consequent cleaning rituals, I became acutely aware of the minute movements occurring in my immediate vicinity. If a potential “contaminant” touched the tap of the kitchen sink, I had to make note so that, should I require use of that sink, I would know to activate the tap without touching it directly. I had to know which finger I had used to ring the doorbell so that I could especially lather that particular finger as soon as I had the opportunity to wash my hands. J.D. Salinger is the master of seemingly irrelevant detail. Salinger attributes importance to mundane, insignificant objects and operations. In Franny and Zooey, Salinger goes on at great length about the host of pharmaceuticals and ostensibly out of place objects lodged in the medicine cabinet of the Glass’ bathroom (Salinger, 76). Only pages prior to the medicine cabinet description, Salinger provides the same treatment to the contents of Bessie Glass’ kimono pockets (Salinger, 73). If a single series of actions deserves the title of Salinger-esque, it is that of a character lighting a cigarette, reaching for an ashtray, setting the ashtray on the bed with one hand while the other reaches for a ringing telephone. Though our motives may have differed, Salinger and I shared a need to recall the details no one else cared to notice. Struggling with mental illness is a lonely activity. As my OCD worsened, Salinger’s prose resonated with increasing intensity. Everyone feels that Holden Caulfield understands the loneliness of their teenage angst and though Holden was there to commiserate with me when it came to my apprehension of the metaphorical Central Park ducks and the general phoniness of the world, Salinger, it seemed, understood my obsessive need to meticulously track life. Owing to the comfort Salinger’s prose provided me, I spent the majority of my grade eleven English class trying to emulate his style. Salinger’s presence in my life helped me to feel understood. And so, as I made attempts to remain unnaturally sanitary, Salinger’s work helped to purge me of anxiety, and keep me relatively, sanitarily sane. The experience prompted my realization of the personal connections, and the power of those connections, that one can make with literature, and, by extension, art at large. Before reading Salinger’s work, I would

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never have thought that the knowledge of Vicks VapoRub, one Schick Injector razor, and a small, unlabelled box of glycerine suppositories residing in the medicine cabinet of a fictional family’s bathroom could ever bring anyone any degree of relief.

*

I didn’t get to thank him. Salinger, by then a long-time literary recluse, died at the age of ninety-one at the end of that first semester of my grade eleven year. Nonetheless, I would like to take this opportunity to give J.D. a shout-out for sticking by me as I cleaned my way through a messy period of my life. Thank you.

With love and squalor,C.J. Schacter

Works Cited

Salinger, J.D. Franny and Zooey. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1961.

CARA SCHACTER

Cara Schacter is a second year student at Victoria College in the University of Toronto pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in a yet to be decided major. Although she entertained the notion of applying for a transfer to the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, she has since decided to remain a Vic student (despite the appeal of being able to tell others she is majoring in architecture). While Schacter has undergone treatment and is no longer debilitated by her OCD, as Lena Dunham said in a recent interview, “OCD wears a groove in your brain, so when you are anxious or stressed you return to those old thought patterns”. When she isn’t live-tweeting from Burwash Study Space, Schacter likes to browse the fancy bottled water section of Whole Foods.

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All submitted papers are detached from their emails and printed without the names of their authors to ensure that they are considered blindly and impartially by the Editorial Board at the time of selection. College membership is also noted in order to fulfill compliance with club membership guidelines of Victoria University Students’ Administrative Council.

The Editorial Board assumes the academic integrity of all papers it considers. Papers must comply with U of T’s standards regarding plagiarism and citations. Submissions to HUMANITAS should not exceed 6,000 words in length.

Submissions to HUMANITAS can be sent to vic.humanitas@gmail.com and must include: (1) author’s name (2) author’s student number (3) author’s year of study (4) author’s college (5) course code and (6) professor for which the paper was written.

HUMANITAS welcomes submissions from a variety of programs and departments, including but not limited to: Anthropology – All Language Departments – Art – Comparative Literature – Cognitive Science – Culture & Civilization Studies – Drama – Economics – Environmental Studies – Film Studies – Gender Studies – History – Geography – Linguistics – Political Science – Psychology – Religion – Sociology