The Villainy of Things

 

Byung-Chul Han, "Non-things: Upheaval in the Lifeworld"

The Villainy of Things

In the Micky Mouse cartoons, representations of material reality change over time. In the earlier episodes, things behave treacherously. They take on a life of their own, even a waywardness. They are unpredictable actors. The hero is constantly grappling with them. He is literally thrown around by them, and they take pleasure in tormenting him. It is not at all safe for him to be near them. Doors, chairs, folding beds or vehicles can at any time turn into dangerous objects and traps. Mechanical things are diabolical. There are constant crashes. The hero is exposed to the vagiaries of things. They are a permanent source of frustration. The cartoons are entertaining to a large extent because of the villainy of things.

In his early films, Charlie Chaplin is also hopelessly at the mercy of the villainy of things. They fly around him, and they block his way. His battles with things create the films' slapstick humour. Torn out of their functional context, the things lead lives of their own. The films present an anarchy of things. In "The Pawnshop", for instance, Charlie, the pawnshop owner, examines an alarm clock with a stethoscope and a hammer, as if it were a body, and opens it with a manual drill and a can opener. The mechanical parts of the disassembled alarm clock then begin to move around as if they were alive.

The villainy of things is now probably a thing of the past. We are no longer maltreated by things. They are not desgtructive, they do not offer resistance. The sting has been taken out of them. We do not perceive them in their otherness or as alien. This weakens our feeling for reality. In particular, digitization intensifies the de-realization of the world because it de-reifies it. Derrida's remark about the thing as the 'entirely other' (le toute autre), as dictating a 'law' to us to which we need to subject ourselves, now sounds strange. Things are submissive. They are submitted to our needs.

Today, even Mickey Mouse leads a digital, smart and immaterial life. His world is digitized and informationalized. In the new series "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse", the representation of material reality is markedly different from that in the early episodes. Things no longer have an independent life: they are obedient tools for solving problems. Life itself is seen as problem solving. The handling of things no longer involves conflict. Things no longer appear as unruly actors.

For example, when Mickey and his friends end up in a trap, they need only shout 'Oh, Tootles' and the 'Handy Dandy machine' appears. The screen of the machine, which looks like a round smartphone, displays a menu of four 'Mouseketools', that is, four objects from which they can choose in order to solve the problem. The Handy Dandy machine has a ready solution for every problem. The hero no longer collides with physical reality. He does not have to deal with the resistance of things. In this way, children are fed the idea that there is nothing that cannot be done, that there is a quick solution, an app, for everything and that life itself is nothing but a series of problems to be solved.

 

from torpedo the ark, "Reflections on the Sorcerer's Apprentice and the Villainy of Things"

Han’s discussion of things prompts me to consider “interstitial” yōkai from Japanese folklore — particularly tsukumogami, which are everyday objects/tools. In his text The Book of the Yōkai: Mysterious Creatures of Japanese Folklore, Michael Dylan Foster explains, after long use, they either turn into “benevolent kami or maleficent yōkai” depending on whether humans respected or viewed them as garbage. Author Matthew Meyer, for instance, explains that a “dragon-like spirit” of knowledge called the kyōrinrin will materialize from forgotten books and ornate scrolls only to “assault” their neglectful owners. Imbued with history and memories, such tsukumogami suggest that without knowledge, history, and “bodily touch, no ties can emerge” (Han). As such, we become unmoored from not only things, but knowledge and history.