From Flower Wreaths to Live Behabitives

Presidential gestures are often boring. Presidents must carry flower wreaths, listen to anthems, hoist flags, light eternal flames.  In J.L. Austin’s terms, one could say that these routine tasks enact  the “behabitive dimension.”  This gestural dimension is steadily growing. It also is changing by becoming less routine, even risky.

Today’s gestures are meant to respond to unexpected situations. They take place in real time. There is nothing routine when Bush responds poorly to Katrina victims, or when Sarkozy calls young people who insult him “scumbags” (racailles).  Of course, presidential jobs still consist of what Austin would call “exercitives.” Yet, the “exercitives,” speech acts making decisions such as orders and grants, increasingly give way to a vast array of “behabitives” such as offering condolences, “apologizing,” asking forgiveness, dissociating from, displaying solidarity .

Why the Importance of Behabitives?  The Question of Visibility

While at the heart of governmental action, processes of deliberation, moments of decision are not really visible. They only become visible through announcements, or, much later, through their results. Yet the multiplicity and variety of media available allow for an almost continuous visibility of the political personnel.This visibility is expected to consist in presentations of self, which are anticipated, deliberately performed and controlled by those who choose to appear in public.

This visibility also consists in situations where those who “appear in public” lose  control over their appearances.  Suddenly thrown in the public eye, political actors are submitted to impromptu ordeals, and lightning judgments. Their “behabitives” are recorded by the media.  Often, they are provoked behaviors.

Politics, Reality Shows and the Question of Reactivity

Take the case of an Iraqi journalist taking his shoe off and throwing it at George Bush.  This is, of course, an insult.  But, there is more.   The flying shoe begs for a reaction. How will the President react? Will he throw back his own shoe?  Will he maintain his composure and ignore the insult?  Will he duck to avoid the shoe, or get it in the face?

One of the first things actors learn is that knowing the part, acting according to script, is just a beginning.  An actor is expected to constantly take notice of the performance of other actors; to respond to their performance, no matter how unexpected or disconcerting. Reacting is often more important than acting.  Crucially, my central point, this is particularly true of today’s politics.

Political rhetoric used to be dominated by the model of the “speech” (parliaments). Then came the interview (radio); then came the “media-event” (television).   Today, a new type of political dramaturgy has emerged. It resembles reality-TV.

Ordeal Journalism

Like candidates for a reality show, political actors are meant to be assessed, judged, chosen or dumped on the basis of unexpected ordeals.  Like these candidates, they will be assessed on the basis of a spontaneous reactivity.  Reacting has moved to the center of the political stage.  Unlike the producers of reality shows, the media are usually not in charge of scripting the ordeals. Yet they have the choice of endorsing them by broadcasting them, or not.

When they do – which is often – one can speak of “ordeal journalism.” Ordeal journalism does not merely concern political personnel.  Sometimes the ordeal is that of a whole state. Think of the Turkish flotilla sailing towards Gaza to challenge the Israeli blockade.   In terms of visibility, Israel cannot avoid reacting to the publicized challenge.  Either it does nothing, and this will be read as gesture of giving up, of condoning the “fait accompli,” or it does something, and this will be read as a gesture of insensitivity, and perhaps of cruelty.  Whether it is one or the other, Israeli behavior becomes a gesture. The ship challenging the blockade, the “Mavi Marmara,” carries a geopolitical reality show. It is a floating television studio.

As opposed to “investigative journalism,” which confers retrospective visibility, revealing the obscure face of well known situations, “ordeal journalism” triggers unexpected forms of visibility.

The WikiLeaks episode participates in both.  On the one hand, it discloses, unveils, unmasks, or means to. On the other hand, it sets up an ordeal situation that makes it impossible for the U.S. not to respond, since both action and inaction will be read as meaningful gestures.  The leaks constitute a dramaturgic performance.  Answering or not answering this performance is also a dramaturgic performance.  Not answering means condoning.  As put by The Economist on December, 11, 2010: “Calibrating the response raises questions of principle, practice and priority… The big danger is that America is provoked into bending or breaking its own rules…” Doing so would, of course, allow WikiLeaks  to implement  a self fulfilling prophecy.

Hostile Visibility: The Destroyers of Front Regions

The public sphere of gesturing has now developed its own rituals and mythologies. On the ritual side, “ordeal journalism” proposes a dramaturgy of losing face.  On the mythological side, the gestures of “unveiling,” of “outing,” of “exposing,” characterize a new type of hero: the investigative Parsifal.  Both “ordeal journalism” and “investigative journalism” are conceived as attacks on what Goffman called the “front region.”

The front region is the main casualty of “ordeal journalism.”  It is also the main target of an “investigative journalism” that thrives on the trope of unveiling (as demonstrated in Rafael Narvaez’s post yesterday).  Investigative journalism is essentially based on what Barthes used to call “the hermeneutic code.”  Appearances are lies. Official narratives are alibis; Thus, Le Monde no longer speaks of “investigation,” but of “counter-investigation” (contr’enquêtes).  Instead of “analyses,” it offers “decipherings” (décryptages).  A paranoid universe that used to be found in thrillers (Robert Ludlum, Dan Brown) has migrated to elite newspapers.

Of course, what is revealed is sometimes substantial.  Yet, the alleged scandal may involve no more than the mere gesture of pointing to a scandal.  If reality is measured by consequences, crying wolf is a relatively efficient way of constructing reality.  One step further, pointing to a scandal is not even required.  All you need is the mere gesture of pointing. Thus a news-segment on an international meeting in which a journalist decides to film Sarkozy’s and Obama’s back. This discloses, the futile attempts by, the ordeal of the shorter man, to gain a few centimetres by standing on his toes; his futile yearning for a front region.