Ben Highmore
HOMEWORK
Routine, social aesthetics and the
ambiguity of everyday life
Highmore is most concerned with everydayness and routine in terms of social
aesthetics. I understand social
aesthetics to mean the nature or appreciation of social behavior, as it exists
within the everyday, particularly in a domestic context. One concept I would like to understand more
extensively is the “relationship between experience and expression” that
Highmore suggests with regard to Giard’s essay on “Doing Cooking” (318). Does
anyone have any further thoughts on this topic?
This goes back to the underlying question: What constitutes an
experience? Highmore quotes Dewey
several times throughout his essay, but the one passage that really resonated
with me says, “There is an experience, but so slack and discursive that it is
not an experience. Needless to say,
such experiences are anesthetic.” (316)
The tension between daily, routine experience and an experience is an essential issue to understanding and
appreciating the everydayness of the everyday.
How do we separate and understand
the two concepts individually when there is such a vast gray area of
experiences to consider?
I found it interesting that the dictionary defines homework as “paid
work carried out in one’s own home”, while Giard and Highmore understand
homework to be simple housework, not recognizable as compensated effort. In “Doing Cooking”, Giard reminds us that
homework is only “women’s work, without schedule or salary (except to be paid
off through service to others)” (323). This
“service to others” is the center of alienation in today’s capitalist
society. Where is the value in doing
service that fails to produce self-satisfaction? Highmore touches on this when he speaks of
the capitalist reason that shrouds the everyday in profit motive and deprives
us of authenticity in modern life.
Helen ~
ReplyDeleteIn regards to your question about the relationship between experience and expression, I have a few thoughts. Experience can be defined in two ways: events that literally take place or the translation of these events into personal milestones.
In Giard's "Doing Cooking," she reiterates that cooking is predominantly viewed as a tedious experience of everyday life; however, she personally believes that in cooking, she can fully express herself. This is just one example of the different things individuals experience and assert their personal preferences on. For some, writing an essay may seem like the most awful experience, but for others who enjoy writing, it may be their favorite way to express themselves.
All in all, it is important to understand your own individual preferences and utilize them in order to express yourself while experiencing new things, as well as everyday things, in the world.