(")Counterfeit Money(") and Mis/Understanding Derrida

I recently finished my struggle through Jacques Derrida's Given Time: I. Counterfeit Money, a book-length study of Baudelaire's short story "Counterfeit Money" and its implications for the gift. It's nearly impossible to discuss a work by Derrida without excessive wordiness and potential confusion, so I apologize in advance. Consider this insight:

"Counterfeit  money is never, as such, counterfeit money. As soon as it is what it is, recognized as such, it ceases to act as and to be worth counterfeit money. It only is by being able to be, perhaps, what it is. . . . It obligates you first of all to wonder what money is: true money, false money, the falsely true and the truly false--and non-money which is neither true nor false, and so forth."

Perhaps one of the more lucid passages of the book, this quoted portion, to me, illustrates the fascinating quality of counterfeit money. Counterfeit money only has value as long as it passes for real money; it has a strange quality of non-existence even more profound than the art forgery or impersonator. When the art forgery is discovered, it retains its identity as a work of art, and the impersonator does not completely forfeit his existence when he is found out. As much as Frank Sinisterra, the counterfeiter from The Recognitions, tries to convince everyone that he is "a real artist," everyone, including his wife knows that the bills he makes are just "worthless, worthless paper."

Much of what Derrida discusses concerning both counterfeit money and "Counterfeit Money" involves their semiotic implications, so in many cases Derrida's analyses do not move away from the actual letters of the text. I find much of what he wrote oddly thrilling even in its obscurity, but it's also easy to dismiss everything as overly intellectual BS. I encourage you to think for yourselves and share your thoughts!

The "Doktor" is Out

A friend pointed me to this story from Germany about a public official in a scandal over his plagiarized doctoral dissertation. I encourage everyone to read the quite well-written, entertaining article, but here's a snippet from it:
"The trouble started last month when this country’s most popular cabinet minister, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, a handsome, media-savvy, conspicuously pomaded 39-year-old baron widely presumed to be a leading candidate to succeed Angela Merkel someday as chancellor, tried to brush off charges that he had plagiarized parts of his 2006 thesis."
The article makes a point of distinguishing between a PhD in the U.S. and one in Germany, suggesting that having a PhD in the U.S. is almost "embarrassing," whereas in Germany it makes someone both qualified for specific jobs and worthy of several honorifics. Perhaps because of the doctoral degree's caché in Germany, it is "literally a crime" to have one's dissertation written by someone else ("farming" it out), and while the man in question does not admit to doing that, he appears to have stolen parts of his thesis and had "help" writing many others.

Guttenberg has stepped down from his government position after widespread uproar, and the event is being compared to former President Clinton's impeachment trial. Is this an apt comparison? I'm almost more likely to compare the story to that of James Frey and his fake memoir, but the repercussions for Frey were much less serious. There are few doctors in high political positions (other than a few M.D.s), and it seems unlikely that a senator would quit office over an uncited or mis-attributed paper. Are we more willing to forgive liars and plagiarists in this country? Do we consider academic integrity separate from personal integrity here?

Fibs, Lies, and Rotten Lies

I've just finished reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for the first time in a dozen years or so, and I find that the lies in the novel come in various forms. There may be one or two others, but I will call the three primary types of lies Confabulist, Survivalist, and Criminal.

1. Confabulist
Tom Sawyer is the greatest confabulist of the novel, constantly making up outrageous stories for no reason other than entertainment. Tom steals copiously from the adventure stories he reads, and sustains a nearly quixotic adherence to them. The simple and true are no fun for Tom, and he insists on ridiculous complications to every scenario. His plot to help Jim escape captivity, furthermore, is an elaborate game that only he knows is completely unnecessary. Though Tom is thrilled that real, dangerous events have happened as a result of his imaginary schemes, I see his bullet wound as a punishment for his antics.

2. Survivalist
Huckleberry Finn, and to a lesser extent Jim, lies for survival. Nearly all of Huck's own lies keep him from trouble and Jim from capture, and for the most part hurt no one else. He constantly invents new names and ailing families for himself, but unlike Tom, Huck is not an especially good liar and has trouble keeping his story straight if the lie is not extremely simple. Huck's brief forays into other types of lies get him into big trouble; his prank on Jim after they are lost in a fog (an attempt at confabulation?) results in more remorse by Huck than almost any other action in the book:
     "It made me feel so mean I could almost kissed his foot to get him to take it back. . . . I didn't do him no more mean tricks, and I wouldn't done that one if I'd a knowed it would make him feel that way."
Still, Huck doesn't generally consider his types of lies bad, but rather akin to "borrowing" food along the river. He doesn't mean any harm in them, and only lies when necessary.

3. Criminal
The King and Duke are the worst kind of liars in the novel, because they use all sorts of trickery, lies, and deceit to cheat others (mostly the poor) of their money. Huck goes along with their schemes to avoid trouble, as long as they are only cheating people out of a little bit of money, but when they plan to cheat a large sum from an innocent family, he takes action against them. When Jim and Huck imagine the two men coming up with even worse schemes, they "made up [thei]r minds they was going to break into somebody's house or store, or was going into the counterfeit-money business, or something." It seems that the only thing worse, for Huck, than stealing and cheating, is to fabricate money itself. The faux royalty's deceitful acts get the better of them eventually, and they leave the novel tarred and feathered.

I could say much more on this subject, but the treatise is getting a bit long already. I'm sure that Huckleberry Finn's complicated morality has been the subject of hundreds of pages of scholarship already, and I imagine that there is still much more to say.

Lying About Dying on the Internet

I've written before about people who pretend to be sick in order to get money or attention, but a recent story in The Guardian online discusses the rash of "Münchausen by Internet" cases in more depth than any I have seen so far. It's easy to lie on the internet; you can pretend to be almost anyone and avoid exposure by claiming a need for privacy or disappearing when things start to get hairy. When I read the stories about these fakers, I think to myself that there's no way I would believe such fantastic stories, but I can't be sure that I wouldn't. No one wants to say that someone is pretending to be sick, especially if she is sick herself.

Much of the article talks about the pathology of the "MBI" perpetrators:

"These aren't just people with a sick sense of humour. Jokers want a quicker payoff than this kind of hoax could ever provide. It requires months of sophisticated research to develop and sustain a convincing story, as well as a team of fictitious personas to back up the web of deceit. Psychiatrists say the lengths to which people like Mandy are prepared to go mean their behaviour is pathological, a disorder rather than simply an act of spite. The irony is these people might actually be classed as ill – just not in the way they claim to be."

Should we pity elaborate liars for having some sort of mental disorder that makes them lie? Should we all know better than to believe things people say on the internet? For that matter, should we know better than to believe things people say to us in person? I struggle with these questions because I want to believe everyone's story, whether it is of triumph or woe. I have yet to understand why false attention, acclaim, or pity is better than honest modesty or even honest anonymity.

All About Lies

One of my favorite movies of all time is All About Eve. There are many reasons to love the film: Bette Davis, witty banter, costumes by Edith Head; none of these reasons make my love for it appropriate to this blog. All About Eve is about misguided trust, about the ease with which a pretty girl can get anything she wants through lies and treachery, about the difference between acting and lying. The best actors (or is it the best liars?) seem to catch on to Eve's deceit early in the film, but the non-actors are more naive and thus truly shattered by the revelation of her lies. Eve only speaks in truth when she talks of acting in front of a theater:

They want you. You belong. Just that alone is worth it.

A running trope of life-as-play runs through the film, but it seems that only Eve takes the idea seriously. Eve's an actress from the start whose life is a fictional play. She wins because she has no life separate from her act; she nullifies any true self to fake her way into the theater, to "belong" at any cost. 

I've not done this film justice in my discussion, but I doubt this will be the last time I have something to say about this film and others like it. I encourage commentary.

Documentary and the Truth

I saw the film Exit Through the Giftshop several months ago in theaters, but it's just begun to get more attention due to both its video release and recent Oscar nomination. The documentary follows a French expatriate obsessed with filming himself doing everything from shaving in his bathroom to scaling buildings in the name of radical street art. Despite its fairly sophisticated commentary on the economic and political value of art, the artistic merits of graffiti, and the stupidity of the general public, the film seems notable to most people for its dubious authenticity. Is there really such a person as Thierry Guetta? Is he really this moronic? Has he really duped Los Angelinos into buying his terrible art, or is the whole thing a stunt created by Banksy (pictured above) in order to piss on (or off?) art connoisseurs and the general public?

Though I rarely say this in my blog, I feel that the viewer misses the point if he looks for the line between truth and fiction in this documentary. Whether or not Thierry Guetta is real, tons of the terrible pseudo-street quasi-pop art by "Mister Brainwash" was viewed and sold at an exhibition in Los Angeles. The crazy Frenchman subject of the film is annoying/unbelievable/interesting whether he is made up or not. The point is still that most people who buy art are following ridiculous fads and that it is extremely easy for people like Banksy to exploit those people. Banksy is prosecuted for the free art he puts on public walls, and paid millions of dollars for essentially the same art placed in private spaces. I'm not necessarily entirely on Banksy's side in this matter, but I agree that the question of Guetta's existence/authenticity is not the main one here.

Art Forgery and the Law

A few months ago I discussed this breaking story, of a man who appeared to be posing as a Jesuit priest and donating forged art to museums across the country. The forger has now been identified as Mark Augustus Landis, and it appears that earlier claims that he took no money for his dozens of forged artworks is true. His story has been discussed at length in the Financial Times and New York Times, and the FT article was even featured on one of my favorite arts news websites, Arts & Letters Daily. The elaborate masquerade involved with the donation of Landis's forged artworks seems a work of art in itself; Landis had to create not only the fake artworks, but also the benefactor priest persona.

Authorities are now attempting to find a way to prosecute Landis for something but are having trouble because the man doesn't seem to have stolen anything or acquired compensation for any of his forged gifts. It appears that the only harm he's caused is injury to the pride of museum curators who probably should have known better than to authenticate these works (and some did). What do you think about this enigmatic figure? Should he be punished in any way possible, or slapped on the wrist and told to stop giving away fakes? I'm still not sure what I think.