Scholar Says Everything Is Not What It Seems

In a world in which marketing determines appearance, Ihab Hassan questions what is real about a person and what is just perception.

Hassan, a literary theorist born in Egypt, spoke in front of a crowd of more than 70 people in Park Hall on Tuesday about the importance of maintaining a sense of individuality in a society based on buying and selling.

The Willson Center for Humanities and Arts, an organization that invites distinguished lecturers to speak every fall at the University about scholarly and creative issues, sponsored the event.

Hassan was nominated by Stephen Corey, the editor of the The Georgia Review literary journal, to speak about the current issues facing a modern society.

According to Hassan, one of the main problems that Americans face is the people’s dependence upon perception, which is not truth but a “surfeit of seeming” instead.

“My concern here is the thinning of the self when perception defines reality, when mirrors line the walls,” Hassan said.

Hassan questioned who people really are as individuals and what people believe in a world where the appearances of things are more important than they actually are.

“I think there’s an urge for truth and a longing for trust,” Hassan said. “We have perceptions all the time but without substance. We love ourselves with the mantra ‘appearance is everything.’”

Hassan believes that people betray their inner self when they view themselves and others as what they seem rather than what they actually are.

According to Hassan, marketing is the main force in America today that drives people to focus on appearances rather than truth.

“We even sell by pretending not to sell,” Hassan said. “It’s called marketing and we buy in a trance.”

He believes that society the way it is today uses advertising to sell things to people that they don’t need by making it appear like something that it isn’t.

“Nothing comes out of nothing,” Hassan said. “That is the language of marketing.”

Companies will try to market their product in any way possible to their advertising audience through phone calls, internet pop-ups, and unsolicited e-mails, according to Hassan.

“Spam is a corruption of marketing, and marketing a corruption of giving and taking.” Hassan said. “They both undermine trust.”

When all relations are based on buying and selling, something is wrong, said Hassan.

Hassan also mentioned that social networking sites, such as MySpace and Facebook, also encourage people to focus more on appearances and perceptions rather than truth.

“I think it just kind of articulated things that are already kind of obvious to people around America today,” Meg Souza, a 20-year-old from California who attended the event, said.

Souza, whose road trip with friend Jeff Grandinetti led her to Athens, said that she heard about the lecture from a campus magazine and thought it sounded interesting.

“It was just nice to hear someone say what you’ve thought about for a while,” Grandinetti said. “Hearing him describe the way everything is bought and sold, it’s just such a weird world that we live in.”

While the two were surprised that Hassan did not speak more directly about capitalism and were a little confused by the lecturer’s choice of words, they appreciated his insight.

Corey, who was more familiar with the lecturer’s speaking style than others, had read many of Hassan’s books on postmodernism and human perception when he was younger and knew that he would not be disappointed by the lecture.

“There’s no such thing as an idea too large for Ihab Hassan,” Corey said, as he introduced the speaker, “and that’s one of the great things about his ideas and his writings. He takes on everything.”

Others appreciated the lecturer’s visit as well.

“I learned about postmodernism from his books, so I’m really excited he’s accepted our invitation to come here,” Betty Jean Craige, the director of the Willson Center, said.

Hassan is currently a professor at the University of Wisconsin and has written many books on postmodernism, such as “Radical Innocence: The Contemporary American Novel,” “The Postmodern Turn: Essays in Postmodern Theory and Culture,” and “Selves at Risk: Patterns of Quest in Contemporary American Letters.”