I think Niko's question about the position of the reflexive academic is central to Dean's argument -- not necessarily because of she is one herself, but because I think the point of her argument is that it is directed squarely at a position that is quite familiar to contemporary academics, particularly those who "see through" not just ideology, but the ideology of ideology itself, if I can put it that way. That is to say, it is directed not just toward those who would engage in the process of unmasking (myself, naively thinking that I could cause the scales to drop from the eyes of my undergrads -- students who had long ago been descaled), but those who engage in the unmasking of ideology critique itself. Think, for example, of the familiar position that goes something like this: "Critiquing ideology always implicitly or explicitly invokes a truth claim (presumably guaranteed by some big Other) -- you can't tell someone they are "in" ideology unless you locate yourself in a position that is able to distinguish between ideology and something that is not ideology. But, thanks to our postmodern reflexivity, we understand that it is precisely this position (that of the debunker, not the debunkee) that is ideological: there are no grounds for positing the position from which this distinction can be made (demise of symbolic efficiency, decline of the "big Other"). I think a key point here is that such a formulation reproduces the cynicism described by Dean: it's not just that the student/member of the public has become savvy enough that unmasking doesn't work, it's also that the position of debunker comes to coincide with debunkee. That is the academics bent on "enlightening" the public come to adopt a cynical reflexive attitude toward their own position (we know that there is no position from which to adjudicate between ideology and the extra-ideological). There is no point in telling us that all attempts to seek a ground (or closure, suture, whatever) are merely ruses of power...we already know. This is the final debunking: debunking is just one more form of bunk(ery?). The second point that Dean, drawing on Zizek makes, is that this cynicism (savvy reflexivity) nevertheless remains ideological. The notion that we can stand outside ideology is ideological in both of its manifestations: 1) that we can adopt the position of science or truth from which to tell others they are caught in ideology AND 2) the notion that we escape ideology by moving beyond its problematic (ideology critique is quaint and outdated -- a relic of a naive era of critical theory). For what is this second position but an attempt to stand outside or detach ourself from ideology (we see through all truth claims as one more ruse of power, in order not to be seen to be dupes)? This second position might describe the conspiratorial subject position of the academic (always looking for the power interests to which any truth claim can be reduced).
So here is Dean's second point: this cynical distancing is the ideology of contemporary capital. And here is the point about what might be described as "postmodern criticism, or, the academic logic of late capitalism": it instantiates, at the level of theory, the reflexive cynicism characteristic of what Dean calls "contemporary technoculture" (and communicative capitalism). It incorporates a (wide?) stance of "ironic distance." Thus Dean asks, "how does the valorization of fragmentation and contingency benefit global capital by preventing it from being understood as a totalizing modality of power?" (and here, right away, Dean invites the reproach that she is not cynical enough -- she defaults to the position of the dupe from which the savvy subject seeks to distance her/himself).
OK, how? At the level of the savvy consumer/citizen, the subject knows the entire culture industry is a commercial fabrication but continues to participate (and this is the point I was trying to make, rather clumsily, with the example of the Halloween costumes: they all know the culture industry is a for-profit system of image manipulation, and yet, they go ahead and buy the 2Gether albums and dress up according to the images that have been manufactured for them. (Isn't Paris Hilton THE example of the ironic celebrity -- the celebrity who is famously reviled for being famous solely for being famous, and yet -- and yet, she continues to sell products and accumulate "mindshare" -- we mock her fame, and in so doing magnify and reproduce it: we are not "fooled" by it, but this doesn't make it go away. On the contrary.).
How does this ideology operate at the level of the savvy academic. I'll try this out to see if I can generate some controversy/response. One possible
example. The author is one Alan McKee, poobah at the Creative Industries campus under the tutelage of John Hartley (well known in audience studies/cultural studies). Here is a quick breakdown of how I think this type of position operates: McKee's version of "distinction":
step 1) culture is a social construction that reproduces class distinction. step 2) (Bourdieu Anglicized and reduced) Culture is purely reducible to the role it plays in creating distinctions. Step 3) Culture itself does not matter -- what matters is what gets done with it. Step 4) there is no symbolic standard for adjudicating between cultural forms (decline of big Other). Step 5: all cultural distinctions are purely a matter of taste -- those who pretend otherwise are seeking to impose a debunked big Other (are exercising power). Step 6: The market is naturalized: our tastes are our own, do not take them away from us, and do not invalidate them by judging them.
The paradox of this position is that it naturalizes taste even as it acknowledges its contingency (and constructed character).
