The recent economic “downturn” is being treated as a world historical event and that means that photo editors have been searching furiously to find the iconic image of the event, a problem made somewhat difficult by the fact that economic traumas are not nearly as easy to visualize as wars or natural disasters.  And the result is somewhat amusing as one after another the various newspapers emphasize an almost endless parade of images of stock brokers and fund managers from around the world depicted in various degrees of emotional distress, mute witnesses to a roller coaster of numbers scrolling across black and green screens and monitors. Elsewhere, and at the same time, news stories wonder when the effects of the most recent “bubble” to burst will be felt in the “real economy.”  To be sure, the effects of the current economic situation are palpable; many who don’t deserve it face serious financial hardships in the years ahead, and I don’t mean to diminish the significance of that in any way. And yet, two photographs that appeared in tandem as part of a slide show at The Seattle Times this past week (10/17/08) put it all in a perspective that it would be good for us to think about.

The first image is of a young child in Lagos, Nigeria playing in a dirty and rusted out oil drum in what appears to be a garbage dump of some sort.  The picture is used to promote World Poverty Day and it channels all of the pathos of images commonly used by NGOs to encourage charitable contributions—perhaps you can’t solve all of the poverty in the world, such ads typically intone, but surely you can save this child for only pennies a day.  The power of the appeal is simple and direct: the child is looking directly at the camera in the manner of a demand and all we have to do is substitute the image of our own child (real or imagined) to understand the pattern of identification that is being encouraged.  

The problem, of course, is that we encounter such images so frequently that it is easy to become inured to their appeal or simply to look past them as if they were not their at all.  And I might have done exactly that but for the photograph that followed it:

What we are looking at is a man smoking a “Golden Zeus,” a cigar that has been dipped in pure gold and is “on display” at the Millionaire’s Fair—a luxury goods and trade show “open to the public”—being held in Munich.  Unlike the photograph of the child in Lagos, there is no demand made here upon the viewer; the smoker is completely self-absorbed in his own private desires, a decadent pleasure offered up to the “public” (by some accounts over 40,000 people paid the $50 admission fee to attend the show and we can only assume that most were not millionaires) for its own perverse consumption.  It is, in a phrase, an exhibition of “class voyeurism.”  Left on its own, the photograph would operate in a pornographic symbolic economy, but of course when placed in direct contrast to the earlier photograph it is hard to imagine it as anything but obscene.

We could go on at some length about the fundamental contradictions of global capitalism captured in the opposition between the two images, and there certainly would be some value in doing that.  But there is a slightly  different point to be made, for the juxtaposition of these photographs at this moment in time stands as a potent reminder of two key facts: (a) for all the bubbles that burst in the financial sectors, and for all of the claims that capitalism will be fundamentally transformed in the process (and it might well be), nevertheless, the desire that animates the underlying value system of a capitalist economy is far from diminished—and no amount of government regulation is likely to change that; and (b) while much has been lost by many as a result of the current crisis, and while more still is likely to be lost, the  measure of that loss is best calibrated against how much we actually had to lose.

As we search out the impact of our current economic woes on the “real economy” it is perhaps prudent to keep both facts in focus.

Photo Credit:  Sunday Alamba/AP; Christof Stache/AP

 

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The breakdowns and bailouts in the financial markets have created sky-high levels of fear, anger, more fear, and more anger. As the Dow drops, anxiety spikes. The situation is awful, dire, disastrous, catastrophic–a maelstrom of panic, collapse, more panic, and further collapse as investors act like crazed victims piling up against a door in a theater that has caught fire.

Don’t think that I had my money in CDs. I’ve been nailed badly and the prospects are not good for my family. But somehow, everyone needs to take a deep breath and exhale. For all the talk of pain, the term remains a metaphor for many of us. And the panic is a symptom not only of the obvious problems but also of what happens when a society becomes a market society instead of a society with a market economy.

If a photograph can help us regain a sense of balance, it might be this one:

The caption at The Guardian tells us that we are looking at a man performing with a horse at the Cavalia equestrian show in Lisbon, Portugal. The horse will be exhibiting superb training, but the roles almost seem reversed. The man looks like the lesser animal, almost like a monkey who has been trained to do tricks on the big ball. By contrast, the horse seems the epitome of nobility, a superior being who only has to show up to dominate the scene. He is the standard by which the man will be judged.

Perhaps this seeming inversion of a natural order appealed to me because of the financial world being turned upside down, and because of my wish to regain a sense of balance. And the scene is about balance–more specifically, about repose, with balance one means to that end. Indeed, the man could be a metaphor for the markets, as he balances precariously (however skillfully) on a globe than is at once unified and capable of punishing any sudden shift in his stance. Above all, however, it is something different from the madness of the markets. Sure, they will have sold tickets to the show, but for a moment a man and a horse stand in perfect equipoise. The man is on top of a small world, but not to get rich. Communion with the horse is more important than that. The sense of ritual harmony runs deep; Confucius would say that this sense of things is essential to restoring balance in the individual and the state.

I could end there, but there is need to go a step further. Repose in a theater may be too easy. The real test is real pain. This is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, and observance has included this beautiful portrait:

The caption at The Big Picture says, “Nathan Gentry, age 6, sits by a window overlooking New York City traffic on September 8, 2006.” Nathan died after months of painful treatments. Although trapped in a disease that most children, thankfully, do not experience, Nathan captures so much of the vulnerability of childhood and the profoundly precious quality of life itself.

This also is a picture of repose. He is experiencing, it seems, a moment free of pain, of quiet reflection on the scene outside the window. And the scene is outside: the glass walls him in as much as it lets him see, and the outer world has shrunk to that small portal. Outside we can see scaffolding, and so he is looking at a building that will be sustained, though he cannot be. His repose comes not for keeping everything in balance, but from putting himself in relationship with what remains. He asks–and takes–nothing but a moment of peace. It seems that he has already learned how to live with less. Obviously, that is something many of us have yet to learn.

Photographs by Nacho Doce/Reuters and, via The Big Picture, Susan Gentry (©), who asked for a link to the Children’s Neuroblastoma Cancer Foundation.

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