White K(night) to the Rescue: Sir Arthur Defends the Colors of the Getty

Abstract

A NOTE FROM THE COMMENTARY EDITOR There may be some readers of Studies, like me, who are not well versed in some of the writing conventions jagodzinski is using in his response to Efland's commentary. Therefore, I have asked the senior editor to include the following quotations from a letter to him from jagodzinski, in which jagodzinski explains some of his language choices: There is a lot of word play and particular use of italics and bolded words for visual effects. Without them, the piece suffers a loss of metaphorical and metonymic play. Imaginary, Real, Thing, and Other are purposely spelled with capital letters in keeping with the Lancanian specialized vocabulary. The word objet a is also correctly spelled to retain the original French as part of this same specialized vocabulary. There is a sentence with the wording-under the guise of justicewhich has been intentionally put at the end of the sentence to give it a double meaning, i.e., as either the 'justice' of the pestilence or the `justice' of Sir Arthur [Efland]. Of course, interested readers also may choose to take jagodzinki's lead and find additional information by pursuing the references he lists at the conclusion of his remarks. Many feminists will, no doubt, shake their heads in disgust at the boy's game that is being staged here. Some of Robert Bly's wild men may even cheer at the tabloid heading from the dark recesses of their forest preserve. Whatever the response may be to the exchange presented here, I feel compelled to throw yet another rock, for I stand accused-demonized, in turn, for having (in Sir Arthur's mind) demonized the Getty. In Sir Arthur's [Efland's] Imaginary, I am cast as an irresponsible demon from hell with nothing better to do with my time except to be a devilish prankster, avoiding the real issue which is to fight for art education (as does the Getty). His accusation paradigmatically illustrates Lacan's register of the Real. The evocation of the unknown, the paranoia of that which threatens, is relegated to the darkness of the night-dismissed and abjected. For the article's intent he substitutes the signifier demonization rather than reading it as an exploration of the effects of desire that the discursive subject position of the ad invites (as further developed in note 2). But, as Lacan claimed: All perception is a form of (mis)perception. Even Efland's unconscious desire cannot remain hidden. His objet a is to get rid of the pestilence which stalks the sanctuary of art education under the guise of justice. I expected more from this Haudegen: an engagement with the central tenet of the article, for instance, as the last sentence of the article invites. Rather, the attack was aimed at the ad hominem jugular, at the same place of invitation where blood might easily flow and k(nightly) justice done to silence the avid. The article's last sentence intentionally set up a psychic force; its self-reflexive irony indicates that none of us can escape our own rhetorical constructions and desires, and, at the same time, it presents a serious accusation for deliberation. Efland chose the former and not the latter, indicating his true colors. I always thought David slew Goliath with a well-aimed rock in the forehead into the very place where he could not see. Translated into the psychobabble of Lacan, thrown at the psychic blind-center which was the Philistine's Thing, i.e., the empty foundation in the Real which held their prosaic cultural Imaginary together. The fight in my allegorical tale is over art education's Imaginary; its ideological stance toward neo-racism; it's about sleeping with the enemy rather than uncritically accepting its golden calf' (web site included). The point of Efland's commentary misses the mark. To say that the imagined fable is a question of privilege where the saying dif ferent strokes for different folks holds court, is being irresponsible. …