As I was doing the research and writing I found myself thinking that the Course tended to deal with people as a large homogeneous mass who, having been raised in a large group such as Western Culture, would see the world in much the same way. I have very serious doubts that this is the case. If we look at groups that have been raised say just in Great Britain we know that there will be differences both large and small even within similar communities. Leaving aside the class divide that remains a significant part of the world in which we live we only have to consider the effects of different educational experiences from the under-performing school in a deprived area to the highly regarded school in an affluent area.
I have the feeling that Visual Culture as an academic exercise is somehow missing the point by concentrating on the differences between Western/Eastern culture or using such large groups as women or men to make what are supposed to be learned pronouncements. For those of us who experienced the Feminist rhetoric from its strident beginnings to its more reasoned approach as seen now it is only too clear that there was a desire to jump on the band wagon of the work of Lacan and others and to produce not well thought out theories that were not only rejected by men, as would be expected, but also the vast majority of women.
It seems that Visual Culture is based on a number of different and sometimes conflicting theories whose base was originally another discipline. For example Lacan was a psychoanalyst and his trying to make sense of the world was centred around the individual. Derrida introduced the idea of deconstruction and whilst this has relevance to visual culture studies it was more concerned with the wider philosophical field. Foucault was a historian and philosopher primarily associated with structuralism and post-structuralism. Although, again, these ideas can be useful in the world of visual culture that was not their original purpose and there has been some 'stretching' of them to make them more relevant and sometimes the stretching causes a tear in the fabric. Althusser concerned himself with the works of Marx and his impact on our way of thinking. Inevitably his approach is that of the collectivist that has its place in visual culture theory but fails to take account the differences of the individual that underpins the diversity and richness of all cultures. Saussure offered remarkable insights into linguistics although his work is now criticised 'for being of its time' i.e. it has become outdated as the studies of linguistics has moved on as the use of language changes.
Like physics there is no Grand Unifying Theory (GUT) that underpins studies of visual culture so that the practitioner is able to pick and choose methodologies and theories that best suit his personal point of view. Whilst this can make for exciting discussion it necessarily leads to unresolved differences with and rejection by others in the field. Perhaps this is no bad thing but it does leave the discipline apparently thrashing about in the dark with no clear idea of where it is going. The strong message I got from Terry Eagleton's book after theory is best summed up by the book description in the Kindle library:
- The golden age of cultural theory (the product of a decade and a half, from 1966 to 1980) is long past. We are living in its aftermath, in an age which, having grown rich in the insights of thinkers like Althusser, Barthes and Derrida has also moved beyond them. What kind of new, fresh thinking does this new era demand? Eagleton concludes that cultural thinking must start thinking ambitiously again - not so that it can hand the West its legitimation, but so that it can seek to make sense of the grand narratives in which it is now embroiled
The book 'After Theory' was published by Penguin Books 2004. The Kindle edition is obtainable from Amazon Books. The quote is from the 'Book Description' provided by Kindle.
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