Artificial Mythologies. A Guide to Cultural Invention

College Literature, Fall 1998 by Ostherr, Kirsten

And yet, despite his stated opposition to humanist discourses of mastery, the practice of artificial mythology that Saper proposes suffers from its own form of intentionality-as an anti-method, artificial mythology is elusive and indefinable. The only way for Saper to explain this practice is by constantly referring to it, with the result that the text is perpetually drawing attention to the fact of its own production. Since artificial mythology intentionally lacks coherence as a methodology, Saper cannot pursue the standard path of elaborating his framework and then "applying" it to his evidence. Instead, he must continually reinvent his own argument, must continually devise different ways of asserting his claims, rather than letting the printed word "speak for itself' (which, clearly, is a mythology in its own right). Considering Saper's rejection of intentionality, this shortcoming indicates more than a stylistic flaw. It points to a problem that is identified in Laura Kipnis's foreword, namely that, "the relation between `cultural change' and what used to be called social change (in the old mythology) is left somewhat unelaborated here" (xiii). In other words, in light of the stated political motivation for this project, the elusiveness of Saper's methodology leaves one wondering how a procedure that is predicated on the absence of agency could possibly change anything. But, as suggested above, maybe that is precisely the metaquestion that we readers are meant to ponder. If so, this question reveals another structuring absence of the text: Saper's refusal to theorize power. The artificial mythologist, the text s/he produces, and the world that gives rise to the objects and discourses under investigation, all seem to be detached from structures of power, floating in space until they accidentally collide and produce a punctum, a fertile convergence of time and space which would serve, in Saper's view, as the new object and methodology for cultural analysis.

The most concrete example of Saper's proposed methodology appears in the chapter entitled "Mapping Television." Drawing on what has become the founding assumption of much scholarship on television audiences (that signification is polysemous, and that different viewers have different interpretations of televisual texts) Saper provides one of the more explicit examples of a forum in which the practice of artificial mythology might be mobilized: "Once one recognizes audience reaction as integral to television, the audience's use of VCRs and remote controls as home mixing machines blurs the apparent opposition between production and consumption. The mass audience creates the possibility for unauthorized readings" (50). This might be the closest that Saper gets to designating a context and desired outcome for his proposed methodology. If so, it bears little resemblance to the forms of political activism we've inherited from the 1960s. But Saper recognizes that shortcoming; in fact, what is most frustrating and most appealing about this book is that Saper is acutely aware of the epistemological brick walls facing cultural theorists at this historical juncture. His diagnosis is so accurate, though, that the suggestion of an "alternative" almost seems to be one of the jokes that Saper recommends as an inventive approach to cultural analysis. (I can picture him winkingly, but seriously, proposing the artificial mythologist as slapstick comedian.) How else can one read a book that simultaneously refuses agency and intention, and promotes a "new" methodology with the zealous enthusiasm of an advertising copy writer? Saper's project is timely, his audacity commendable, his sense of humor invigorating, and even if the sheer scope of his project is daunting, it is nonetheless worthy of serious critical attention.