Hybrid Assignment 08
Marisa Chung
Hybrid Assignment 8
11/03/15
In Jodi Dean’s essay she elaborates on the notion of “whatever being” as a new form of personality which is described as an individual without a sense of belonging towards a specific category. The term “whatever being” was formed from the word “whatever” which is an extremely common word used today among Americans. The word “whatever” is said as a response to express indifference, such as not willing to accept nor refuse. From my understanding of Dean’s essay, she expands this concept and the form of communicativity by explaining the comparison of the different ways digital media plays a role in our experiences
Dean uses an example from the response of Herman Melville’s Bartleby, (which I have previously read for a different class) when the scrivener calmly responds “I’d rather not” when the lawyer asks him to complete a task. The lawyer is so startled by his response that he doesn’t know how to react to the scrivener’s response. According to Dean, “whatever” resembles the response of the scrivener. Although “I’d rather not” is an unacceptable answer from a worker to a “boss”, the lawyer does not let the scrivener go and tries to get answers to his strange behaviors. That itself could have been a good reason for the lawyer to let him go, however he does not. Bartleby continues to answer saying “I would prefer not to”, but the lawyer wishes that Bartleby would tell him anything. According to Dean, “His answer affirms the intelligibility of the request even as it challenges the normative expectations informing it.” Bartleby is a subject with preferences, and these preferences must be attended to.
