Of Image and Substance

Mark Twain is claimed to have said “image travels round the world twice before reality gets its shoes on”. For William Butler Yeats, it had more to do with the poetic persona as the mask a public figure must wear to communicate with large numbers of people. For those whose public dealings are limited to the few within their monkeysphere there really is not much need for a public persona, however in these days of mass communication and social networking image is no longer the reserve of the famous. We are our own little spin doctors and image consultants.

I find it quite appropriate that places singles go to meet other singles in hope of finding love are called “meat markets”. All ethical human relations are based on trading values. These may be monetary exchanges, exchanging favours, or advice, or simply companionship. The values exchanged can be emotional or material. The important part is the trade. When people are looking to meet someone in these settings, it’s like being in an outdoor market with everyone showing and shouting what they have to offer another person. We are all salesmen selling a product and the product that we are selling is brand us.

A friend shared an observation with me the other night. He noticed that if a pretty girl passes I suddenly start speaking more loudly about my work as a writer. I honestly never noticed I did that, but I see now it’s true. I do do that. That is me announcing the values I have on offer. I do this out of habit probably because my work is of value to me and it has always brought me buyers in the past.

According to the pick-up artists, I am presenting the wrong image. The goal is “cocky funny” as being the attitude, or image, that women find attractive. There has to be a balance. Too little cocky is boring and lacking self-confidence and too much is arrogance. As for funny, too little is boring and too much is the overbearing class clown. Cocky funny is more effective than a discourse on Aristotelian Ethics in creating arousal despite what you might read in an Ayn Rand novel.

Where I believe some pick-up artists get it wrong is that much of their advice leans towards creating a public image to sell the product, but like the snake oil salesman, he may get the punter’s money but there is no substance to the product so there are no return customers. So he has to keep moving from town to town and hope that no one recognises him. Only then can the snake oil salesman perpetuate his fraud.

Image is like the smell of fresh coffee or cinnamon buns. We are drawn by the smell and we enjoy the feelings it gives us, but we want that cup of coffee or the bun at the end of the journey. We not only want our desires to be fanned, we also want them satisfied. For this reason, image and substance go hand in hand. One is simply a reflection of the other. For the Victorians, this cultivated image was not just appearance, but more importantly reputation. A reputation could make or break a person’s prospects. As the saying goes, “Our reputation precedes us”.

I was recently made aware of someone who is quite vocal in her beliefs and calculated in her image, but her listeners found her strangely hollow. She was described as lacking passion. When the person’s history was recounted to me it became obvious that here was someone who had cultivated an image based on a particular ideology and had the ability to argue and even embody her position, but her life was one of complete contradiction. The word for such people is hypocrite; someone whose image is contrary to their substance.

What I am describing here is the relationship between image and substance as it pertains to people selling themselves in their social interactions. When we move up to more famous people another layer is added to the dynamic.

Consider the case of Marilyn Manson and Dita Von Tease. The story goes that their marriage ended because she wanted to be the Fifties housewife and he wanted to be the partying rock star. The Manson image/substance seems consistent but Dita’s seems contrary. Not true. Manson seems to have made a classic blunder. Female performers whose job is to convey an image of sexuality are not inherently nymphomaniacs. That is an image the male audience wants to believe, but that is all just part of the show. The sexy stripper flirting with a guy as she gives him a lap dance will go home to her boyfriend and complain about her sore feet.

But the same can be said of the rock star. I once met an aspiring metal singer whose band was considering touring. He complained that he would now have to grow his hair out again. The members of Metallica are all classically trained musicians, but you would not assume that from their fan base. Or think of Lord Byron, the poster boy for the Romantic. Mr Mad, Bad, and Dangerous-to- Know wrote, “Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves." One hardly thinks of the Byronic image as an advocate for Reason.

People are drawn to the popular image created by such celebrities and fill-in the blanks with the sort of person they want them to be for real. As Mr. Incredible said, “Of course I have a secret identity. I don't know a single superhero who doesn't. Who wants the pressure of being super all the time?”

The concepts of image, self-image, public persona, celebrity persona, and reputation are all facets of the same basic concept. These are ideas that we utilize, consume, and propagate on a daily basis, but like your mobile phone, you can probably work it but don’t really understand it.

Image is a form of communication. As with any communication, do you know what you have to say? Is it purposeful and thought out or haphazard? Are you going to tell the truth or lie? Will your audience understand you, misinterpret you, or be completely baffled?

Another thing about image is that it is always communicating. Even when a person says not a word they are speaking volumes to an observer, whether or not the audience is correctly interpreting the image or even if they are consciously aware it.

This is how image works. Regular readers are aware of my theory concerning the triune nature of reality. In that video link I wrote:

Objective Reality is supreme, but we can never truly know it.

We exist in Subjective Reality, but the map is not the terrain.

We depend on Artificial Reality, but it must be sustained by production.

There is a philosophical debate over what defines humanity. There are those who say that it is our ability to reason. Others say it is emotion, particularly sympathy and empathy. I once strongly advocated the former over the latter, but Adam Smith convinced me otherwise.

We live in the Objective Reality governed by Natural Law and fuelled by the engine of karma, the process of cause and effect. I sometimes call this The Great Machine with every moment in time, every event, and every human choice moving another piece forward and creating a new chain of events. We could not understand this process if we could not imagine the process.

Sympathy and empathy are also the result of imagination, as we imagine ourselves in another position or imagining how they feel. Of the four root emotions (happiness, sorrow, desire, and fear) two of them, desire and fear, are purely imaginative in nature.

What makes a human being unique is their ability to imagine and thus create the Subjective Reality of our perceptions. Our imaginations make us human. It is the source of all human invention and creation, and thus the source of the Artificial Reality as well.

The image that we communicate to others depends upon the perceptions of our audience and how they imagine us to be.

This brings me to my theory of Doppelgangers. Since the mind can never truly engage reality.  Every person, place, thing, or concept that we encounter is filtered through our perceptions and the mind creates a mental manifestation of it.  When we think about, talk about, or engage with that thing we do so with the mental image and not the thing itself.  Wisdom is the ability to align our idea of reality as closely and objectively as possible with reality.

When you first see or encounter someone, your mind begins to construct a mental doppelganger, or imaginative duplicate, of this person.  If a relationship forms, then that image gets fleshed-out.  Ideally, a perfect mental double is created.  All of your dealings with this person is not with the person but with your idea of the person.

If an intimate relationship or long-term partnership develops, the mind starts to form emotional attachments with the doppelganger.  Now, the doppelganger needs constant feedback from the real person to remain viable.  So the process is not independent.  However, we are always in love with our idea of a person and never with the real person.  That may seem harsh, but if we exist within the realm of our perception and can never truly know Objective Reality, then why would our romantic relationships be any different?

As with our relationship with reality, our mental constructs may be more true than false in some areas and more false than true in others.  The doppelganger may be accurate or it may be constructed of wishful thinking or emotional need.  As with life, the goal is to be wise.  We should use the facts of reality in our mental manufacturing process; likewise we must look at a person’s actions as objectively as possible in creating the doppelganger.

When the relationship ends, even though the person is gone, the doppelganger remains.  However, without the feedback from the real person the doppelganger begins to die.  This is incredibly painful because the doppelganger is made from you.  Your thoughts, your hopes, your desires, your emotions.  It may feel like you are dying inside, and that is because you are.

The human imagination is a powerful thing – and extremely dangerous. Of the three “realities”, the only one that is True Reality is Objective Reality.  Nonetheless, it is our ability to imagine Objective Reality in the form of Subjective Reality that allows us to form emotional connections with it and ultimately gives life meaning.

In his poem Ode on a Grecian Urn, John Keats concludes with the famous line "Beauty is truth, truth beauty, - that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know”. The reasoning behind this statement is that we live in a world of order governed by Natural Law which is the source of Truth, likewise Beauty is defined by order and symmetry. We can go a step further and say that by following the Natural Law then order and beauty will follow, which is Morality, or right action. So Truth, Beauty, and Righteousness are all aspects of the same central concept.

According to Objective Reality governed by Natural Law, Truth is Beauty and Beauty is Truth, however the picture changes in the context of Subjective Reality. Subjective Reality is based on an individual and collective perception and interpretation of Objective Reality and the feelings evoked. Since this is only an idea, then is does not really exist. Likewise, when we communicate these ideas to each other be they through conversations or through art, we are only communicating ideas, not necessarily reality.

Subjective Reality is governed by individual and collective feelings, learned responses, and social conditioning which may or may not have any connection to Natural law. To break these laws is to invite hurting people’s feelings and possibly invite their retribution.

Everything is relative without the standard provided by Natural Law and its principles. When everything is true; there is no Truth. When everything is beautiful; there is no Beauty. When any action is moral justified; there is no morality. When Subjective Reality is taken to its logical extreme we find that there is no Truth, no Beauty, and no Ethics.

John Keats was a child of the Romantic Era, the Age of Reason. Today, we live in what I call The Socialist Era, the Age of Feeling. I cover this in the article, Born in 1920. Where the culture of Keats was one focused primarily on Objective Reality and Natural Law, ours is one based on Subjective Reality and on Divine and Positive Law, in other words, whatever people feel is true, beautiful, or moral is valid regardless of any proven basis in reality.

To illustrate, with an Objective orientation the purpose of education and research is to understand Nature so that we can command Nature. But with a Subjective foundation the purpose of education and research is to attain social status and influence regardless of Natural Law. This places us on the path to destruction, or what I call Athena’s Wrath.

I touched on the concept of celebrity persona. When we see Christian Bale dressed-up like a giant bat and saying, “I’m Batman” we know that he’s lying. He’s Christian Bale. But we accept the lie because we recognise he is an actor pretending to be Batman for our entertainment. In the film Galaxy Quest, we laugh at the alien Thermians who thought American television programs were historical records. In real life, it would be just as foolish as the guy in the strip club thinking that the dancer was flirting with him because she fancied him. Most people have the power to discern a false image from a true one and will happily play along.

And yet when it comes to celebrities outwith playing a role, or musicians, or even politicians, people are quick to believe the false image concocted by their stylists and spin doctors. Why? Because they want to believe even though deep down they know it is a lie. They want their heroes and villains standing in the spotlight to love or despise. They want to believe in the substance they perceive to be communicated by these images.

There is a scene in the film Galaxy Quest where an actor, who plays a Captain Kirk-type hero on TV, is feeling irritable and slags off a fan by reminding him that it’s not real. The dejected kid says he knows this and slinks off. In the course of the film the fictional ship is built by aliens and the actor has to call on the fanboy for help. The actor tells the kid that it’s all real and the elated fan shouts, “I knew it”. We know that it is a lie but we desperately need it to be true.

The psychologist Nathaniel Brandon has an exercise were he asks people to stand in front of the group one by one and say convincingly, “I am worthy of existence”. Some are overly theatrical, some are shy, and others are monotone. He then asks the audience if they believe the person. Mostly, they don’t. His point is that most people don’t believe that they are worthy of existence. Most people want to be someone that they imagine to be more worthy.

We play out this exercise every day of our lives. The world is a meat market and we are all salesmen trying to convince the world that our goods, Brand Us, is worthy. Some people use gimmicks, some lie, some are overly theatrical, some shy, some sexy, some monotone, and some mundane. All this is conveyed through image – whether that image is consciously cultivated or not.

In the world of the Subjective we endeavour to make our audience feel good, regardless of Natural Law. This can bring fame, fortune, and recognition, but it all lacks substance. According to Branden, one of the keys to a positive self-image, which we then project through our communicated image, is the sense of efficacy. This means that we have done something to merit it by our actions in the Objective Reality of karma – cause/effect or action/consequence.

Edward Bernays was Sigmund Freud’s nephew and applied his uncle’s theories in the field of sales and marketing. He even branched out into politics and political causes. Bernays was all about manipulating public opinion through human desires. Remember, desire is one of the imagined emotions. In other words, he was using image to sell products and concepts. Why? Because people respond to the feelings invoked through the imagination more than facts. This is how image travels round the world twice before reality gets its shoes on. This same principle is taught by the pick-up artist gurus. The lesson is how to create an image to manipulate female emotions in your favour.

Now perhaps the products sold by the Mad Men are superior to their competition. Perhaps the guy manipulating the girl really is a great guy for her. Regardless, the image is meaningless without the substance to back it up. Without substance the product and the relationship will eventually fail.

One of the key principles of the Romantic is to live consciously. This is because the Romantic emphasises the self and free will, but free will is meaningless if we choose not to consciously exercise it. This means taking conscious control of your image.

Through a combination of attitude, dress, and physical and verbal communication you are conveying an image. You may have a celebrity persona and also a public persona and a private persona, but each of these must convey Truth. The substance behind the image is you.