Attraction as Distraction

            I was a little confused with Benjamin’s discussion of “wish images” (4). From my understanding, he was explaining that each epoch hopes that the next imagined epoch will be one that will represent a “classless” “primal past.” And these “wish images” within the “unconscious” of the “collective” are transfigured from generation to generation. It was not explicit if he was referring to the collective consciousness/unconsciousness of the working class, but I guess it can be implied from his reference to Marx. I find it problematic to refer to a “primal” “classless” society. While class systems were not always explicitly established, it is hard to imagine that there was ever a time when power structures were not in place (maybe I have read too much Foucault). However, Benjamin does describe this society as a “utopia” so perhaps he can also only envision a classless society as a cultural myth.

            His discussion of the world exhibitions reminded me of   the Vanity Fair Bunyan’s Pilgrim Progress where this type of marketplace is described as a place of sin. Interestingly enough, Benjamin describes these world exhibitions as “places of pilgrimage” where “the exchange value of the commodity” is “glorify[ied]” (7). While I do not take Benjamin as an ardent Christian, I do take him for an influential modernist who reveals how the industrial revolution has significantly changed society’s sense of value.

            Benjamin’s discussion of these exhibitions as being “distractions” also reminded me of Adorno and Horkheimer as well as Baudrillard. The German social critics Adorno and Horkheimer writing almost during the same time as Benjamin further his argument by explaining that the culture industry produces “distractions” in order to coerce the working class to be content with their material existence.  One of the examples Adorno and Horkheimer use for these types of distractions is the pub/bar. This establishment serves the worker alcohol to replenish him from his long day at work and allows him to forget about his hardships. Instead of the worker discussing resolutions for his struggles, he drinks beer to  deal (or not deal) with  these issues and returns to work the next day. Just as Benjamin describes, the worker “surrenders to its manipulation while enjoying his alienation from himself and others.” This argument of attractions serving as distractions reflects what Baudrillard argues much later in his Simulations and Simulacra. In one of Baudrillard’s examples, he describes Disneyland as being a place for people to experience the imaginary in order to distract them from the fact that they already have an imaginary existence. While many make take his idea as a stretch (which many do), it does play into Benjamin’s idea of the “phantasmagoria.”

            This reading made me question why Lady Deadlock was so bored. At first, I thought that Dickens was poking fun at the famous bourgeoisie women who suffered from the ennui. However, Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina were published later than Bleak House.  Either way, Lady Deadlock represents one who cannot be distracted with attractions. She has too many attractions at her disposal. I am not sure what else I can say about the ennui so I will end here and continue to follow our Lady’s boredom within the rest of the novel.