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Elijah Simmons

Leslie Heywood

English 572

November 2014

Channel Orange in Affective Neuroscience

No matter the race, class or education one has, one

always yearns. What one yearns for depends on the socially

constructed world one was raised in. Jack Panksepp and

Lauren Berlant have developed theories about affective

neuroscience that address how one yearns for objects. Taken

together, Berlant and Panksepp provide a framework through

which we can under stand the work of Frank Ocean, a

contemporary singer-songwriter and rapper whose 2012 debut

Channel Orange has been influential in African-American

culture. There, Ocean shares experiences constructed along

the lines Berlant proposes through songs about people

seeking for optimism whose seeking is meet with cruelty.

Ocean is a Hip-Hop example of Pankseep’s SEEKING system that

is culturally constructed and channeled through the

mechanism of cruel optimism that Berlant outlines,

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emphasizing how contemporary African-Americans tend to seek

the very things that leads to emptiness.

Jaak Panksepp is the founder of the field of affective

neuroscience, and his empirical work reveals the seven

primary affective systems in the brain responsible for our

most basic emotions. The seven primary affects that Panksepp

coined are SEEKING, RAGE, FEAR, LUST, CARE, PANIC/GRIEF, and

PLAY. In my opinion the most important affect system is the

SEEKING system.

SEEKING is a primary process, physiological mechanism

that, combined with the social construction of yearning, can

help explain desire in consumer culture and its particular

manifestations in different groups.

Building on the idea of SEEKING and yearning, Lauren

Berlant a distinguished professor at University of

Chicago,wrote the monograph, Cruel Optimism that addresses

how, within consumer culture, a given group’s desires are

constructed toward particular fantasies of fulfillment, such

as the idea of “the good life” (1 Berlant) However, these

fantasies are often cruel because they are not attainable.

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It is through affective neuroscience, in combination with

critical cultural analysis, that we can best analyze the

complications of contemporary cultural texts because

affective neuroscience gives us insight into basic emotions

that, in conjunction with cultural norms, work to define

behaviors.

Traditionally, humanities courses consider the many

complicated forms of cultural construction, and how power

operates on individuals and groups to structure their

desires and behaviors. Affective neuroscience can help

complicate this model, providing insight into the operation

of the physiological mechanisms behind affect that are then

structured by culture to produce particular emotions. The

SEEKING system, for instance, is the basic motivational

force that propels humans and organism forward into the

world, which then becomes channeled through cultural

interventions.

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A structuring assumption of affective neuroscience is

that the involuntary moments of affect start in the brain

stem, making the reaction

to

stimulus

a

bottom-

up model

of information processing instead of the top-down,

cognition-based models that have been influential in the

past. According to neuroscience blogger and research

scientist Sara-Neena Kock, “to be very specific regarding

neurocircuitry for the SEEKING system, Panksepp refers to

the extended lateral hypothalamic corridor, which is part of

the previously discussed medial forebrain bundle (MFB), a

prominent tract of nerve fibers, both ascending and

descending, within which is incorporated the mesolimbic and

mesocortical dopamine pathways of the SEEKING system” (Kock,

http://mybrainnotes.com/brain-ocd-dopamine.html ). Kock

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explains what happens when the seeking affect is trigged:

the movement within the brain is at the speed of light,

occurring seconds before cognitive processing kicks in.

“A well-functioning SEEKING system is essential to

physical and emotional health. However, when the system is

under-or over stimulated it can promote emotional disorders,

ranging from depression to psychosis. In his book Awakening

(1973), Oliver Sacks wrote about the crushing depression

suffered by patients whose SEEKING systems were under

stimulated due to the depletions of dopamine caused by

Parkinson’s disease” (Panksepp 108). Panksepp explains the

importance of having a well functioning SEEKING system and

gives a real life example of how the SEEKING system can

malfunction. Suppose one’s SEEKING affect was shut down, the

PANIC/GRIEF system would take over and cause one to have

depression. “If you take the SEEKING system away, your

mental life is so compromised, you cannot live happily”

(Badt). Panksepp commented in an interview with Karin Badt

an Associate Professor of Cinema and Theater in Paris. If

we didn’t understand how basic affects inform mental

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cognition and understanding, our knowledge of human

behaviors would be very incomplete.

The topic of SEEKING by Panksepp is vital, in the sense

that every human or animal seeks for something. As he

explains in an interview with Pamela Weintraub, “It was the

kind of behavior the animal showed when it was looking for

food. So I started thinking in those terms: This was Mother

Nature’s way of allowing animals to explore the world. It

was an exploratory system; it was about generating

expectancies, seeking rewards” (Weintraub

http://discovermagazine.com/2012/may/11-jaak-panksepp-rat-

tickler-found-humans-7-primal-emotions). Panksepp’s research

has found the same basic affective systems in the brain stem

across mammalian species. Animals as well as humans have

affects that go beyond homeostatic mechanisms related to

hunger and thirst: even when rats are fed they are still in

seeking mode. “All unpleasant states of homeostatic

imbalance automatically make the SEEKING more responsive to

rewards (and cues that predict them)” (Panksepp 99). In my

understanding this example can explain why humans can be

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rich and have all their needs and desires satisfied but

still yearn for more or how humans will invest time and

money into objects that can be harmful.

I was able to experience consumer desire and seeking as

a characteristic of the African American community. During

my freshman year of college I was in line at 7:00am to

purchase the new Jordan VI’s. I was seeking to be part of

the new trend in the black community. However, the cruel

optimism was that each store only carries two sizes per shoe

size; therefore there is a high chance that one will never

obtain the sneakers. Another element of cruel optimism that

I experienced that day was overhearing a young child state

“I’m not going to school for the first week, because I don’t

want people to see my sneakers yet”. Both of these examples

are characteristics of the consumerism within the African-

American community.

Frank Ocean gives various examples of how the wealthy

tend to want more. “Why you want the world, when you have

the beach” (Sweet Life, Ocean). The concept of SEEKING is

Cruel Optimism, coined by Lauren Berlant. Seeking leads to

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cruel optimism in that it is a basic motivational system

that is, because of the cultural system, only offered

limited opportunities for fulfillment—opportunities that

fall short in term of anything meaningful. In my

understanding, cruel optimism is what everyone faces in a

consumer culture that promises “the good life” within a

structure of dwindling economic opportunities for full-time

work that no longer offers the possibility of “the good

life.” Berlant writes

“What’s cruel about these attachments . . .is that the

subjects who have x in their lives might not well

endure the loss of their object/scene of desire, even

though its presence threatens their well-being, because

whatever the content of the attachment is, the

continuity of its form provides something of the

continuity of the subject’s sense of what it means to

keep on living on and to look forward to being in the

world…This phrase points to a condition different than

that of melancholia, which is enacted in the subject’s

desire to temporize an experience of the loss of an

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object/scene with which she has identified her ego

continuity. Cruel optimism is the condition of

maintaining an attachment to a problematic object in

advance of its loss” (Berlant 24).

Berlant provides a framework for analyzing the operation of

cruel optimism in the African-American community, where

conspicuous consumption is glamorized as `the good life’ but

few have the resources to participate in these consumption

practices would require. An example of African-American

consumerism would be the constant purchasing of Jordan brand

sneakers every Saturday when new pairs are released. There

is a new media trend called memes. A meme is a form of a

comic strip for a certain news event. Every Saturday there

are various memes about African-Americans buying the latest

Jordan brand sneakers. “With a buying power nearly $1

trillion annually, if African-American were a country,

they’d be the 16th largest country in the world”

(Blackdemographics.com) The points of emphasis in the meme

tend to include how the price to make the sneakers is ten

times cheaper than the production cost of the sneakers.

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Another point is how African Americans will spend their last

dollar or even their last check on the sneakers. “2015,

African-American buying power is estimated to gain a

whopping 35% hitting $1.2 Trillion dollars up from $913

Billion”(Blackdemographic.com). Moreover, repeating these

factors that are implemented in memes give a prominent

example of African-American consumerism. With high spending

rates, the job market for African-American would seem to

decrease with lack of disposable money.

The reason why the affect concept should be in

humanities is because the job market for humanities

graduates is gruesome. One seeks a blue-collar job after

graduating with a degree in humanities however “Thirty six

percent of employed Black men hold blue collar occupations”

(Blackdemographics.com). SEEKING and cruel optimism work

together in the sense that consumer culture offers

continually changing registers of new things to seek, and

new things to let consumers down: “A relation of cruel

optimism exists when something you desire is actually an

object to your flourishing. It might involve food, or a

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kind of love; it might be a fantasy of a good life; or a

political project. It might rest on something simpler, too,

like a new habit that promises to induce in you an improved

way of being. These kinds of optimistic relation are not

inherently cruel. They become cruel only when the object

that draws your attachment actively impedes the aim that

brought you to it initially” (Berlant, 1). The social

structure of “cruel optimism’ helps explain some of the main

problems featured in Channel Orange--the concepts of love and

good life.

In Ocean’s short interlude titled “Fertilizer,” he

shows that his SEEKING system has taken too much damage.

“Fertilizer, I’ll take bullshit if that's all you got, some

fertilizer” (Ocean Fertilizer). In this quote Ocean is

saying he has lost all hope in a person whom he wanted

optimism with. The interlude harps on how one has to learn

to accept the negative once their SEEKING system is damaged;

consequently his SEEKING system will be filled with cruelty.

Berlant defines the historical present of “precarity” as “an

ongoing mélange or collection of shattering events…that

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creates a state” in which there is a “shift in how the older

state-liberal-capitalist fantasies shape adjustments to the

structural pressures of crisis and loss that are wearing out

the power of the good life’s traditional fantasy bribe

without wearing out the need for a good life” (p. 10). In

the song Fertlizer Ocean conveys the concept of precartiy

with his a few words. It is evident that Ocean’s precarity

is shattered because the goal he wants to obtain keeps

falling from his grasp.

In the song “Sweet Life”, Ocean takes on the problem of

why one seeks for more when they already have the “sweet

life”. “You’ve had a landscaper and a housekeeper since you

were born. The star shine always kept you warm. Don’t know

why see the world, when you got the beach” (“Frank Ocean

Sweet Life”).] Ocean questions the affluent class in an

African-American neighborhood in Beverly Hills in the song

“Sweet life”. The story told by Ocean portrays an adolescent

who yearns for something real, opposed to the material items

his family already possesses. Jacob Miller, a well renowned

psychology blogger, gives an account on the power of ones’

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SEEKING system. “The minute you wake up, the SEEKING system

is in gear: where is the coffee, where is my cell phone,

what is going on, and where can I find it” (Miller). Miller

explains how the SEEKING system is continually working even

when one has achieved what others may call a lot.

In my understanding, Ocean is writing his album with

sense of emptiness in his life. Through affective

neuroscience, one could find the root to his emptiness. "A

state of mind in Ocean ['s] world: numb, deceptively

luxurious and self-satisfied, where the denizens live

disconnected from one another and the world” (Kot). Greg Kot

addresses the mindset that Ocean is in when writing his

album. In addition Jon Caramanica from the New York Times

gives his thoughts of Oceans mindset “rife with the sting of

unrequited love, both on the receiving and inflicting ends",

with "lovers who tantalize but remain at arm's length”

(Caramanica). Caramanica and Kot both address how Ocean is

dealing with cruel optimism during his album.

Caramanica and Kot interpret Channel Orange as a text

that deals with the theme of emptiness. For instance, Ocean

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writes a ten-minute ballad about how African-American women

are used as objects to be consumed. The theme of the

“Pyramids” concerns an African-American woman who has lost

herself and become empty. The emptiness is rooted in the

constant mistreatment by men, and the cruelty is experienced

with every optimistic hope the African-American women give

to either a man or a goal in her life as a stripper. The

character in the song must find her way in this consumer

driven world, and not be the consumed object in the world.

“They have taken Cleopatra, Run run run, come back for my

glory, Bring her back to me, Run run run, the crown of our

pharaoh. The throne of our queen is empty” (“Ocean

Pyramids”). This song gives light to Ocean creating away out

of consumerism for the African-American community.

African-American Women are constantly objectified when all

they seek is love and care.

“Pyramids” goes along with the ideas expressed by

Panksepp’s SEEKING. “And when it comes to drugs like

alcohol, cocaine, heroine, it is our SEEKING system that

solidifies our addictive desires” (101). Panksepp’s example

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of how addictive desires are formed pushes the theme of the

song “Pyramids”--the addictive desire to be apart of the

consumer world or to get rid of one’s personal emptiness and

find purpose in life.

In the song “Super Rich Kids,” Ocean expresses two

desires that have their roots within the SEEKING system. The

first concept of SEEKING is for more in life, to give value

to a superficial life. Also, Ocean is SEEKING love. While

the need for love and CARE and SEEKING are primary process

mechanisms, it is the given cultural context that tells an

individual what is or isn’t valuable. When that cultural

context is American consumerism, Ocean shows that this

context can’t provide real meaning, and leaves those who

participate in it unfulfilled in their most basic affective

needs:

“Too many bottles of this wine we can't pronounce

Too many bowls of that green no lucky charms

The maids come around too much

Parents ain't around enough

Too many joy rides in daddy's jaguar

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Too many white lies and white lines

Super rich kids with nothing but loose ends

Super rich kids with nothing but fake friends”

These lyrics represent a wealthy kid growing tired of `the

good life,’ and wanting meaning in his or her life. As

Berlant helps explain, “the attachment is to “comprised

conditions of possibility whose realization is discovered

either to be impossible, sheer fantasy, or too possible, and

toxic” (24). Berlant explains that when we seek it can lead

to negative outcomes, even if we have many positives in our

lives.

In the latter part of the song Ocean expresses how the

attainment of consumer goods still leaves the speaker

unfulfilled: “Real love/Ain't that something rare/I'm

searching for a real love/Talkin bout real love”(“Super Rich

Kids”). Ocean yearns for love, rather than wealth. The

SEEKING system is that which impels us to seek out

information in our environment that will help us survive,

whether the location of tasty nuts or a link on a new

Internet dating service,” but because of affective longings

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for relationship and CARE, consumer goods can only provide

survival in the sense of satisfying basic needs—which luxury

goods go beyond anyway. (Prosser). Ocean’s work helps us

understand that having wealth may seem like the ultimate

goal to most people, but that its fulfillment comes up

short. Ocean tries to call attention to those basic affects

neglected by the social constructed world that only values

luxury consumer goods, which would involve fulfillment in

the context of other basic affects such as CARE.

Insights from affective neuroscience that show how we

all share basic affective systems such as SEEKING help to

explain the work of Frank Ocean, a premier Hip-Hop artist

who shows that while we all SEEK in general, cultural

constructions help determine what the specific forms that

SEEKING takes—what objects will be most valued and sought

after. The way power operates differentially within

American consumer culture shows that consumerism may be a

particularly strong form of “cruel optimism” for African

Americans, since desire to consume and succeed and belong

within consumer culture does not lead to emotional

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fulfillment even if one is successful, and structural

realities show that even fewer African-Americans have a

chance at the supposed `good life’ than do most other

groups. The situation is doubly cruel in that sense.

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Works Cited

"Album of the Year: Frank Ocean's 'channel ORANGE'" SPIN.

Web. 23 Nov. 2014.

Badt, Karin. "Depressed? Your "SEEKING" System Might Not Be

Working: A Conversation with Neuroscientist Jaak

Panksepp." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 18

July 2013. Web. 23 Nov. 2014.

Berlant, Lauren Gail. Cruel Optimism. Durham: Duke UP, 2011.

Print.

Caramanica, Jon (July 8, 2012). "Creating His Own Gravity".The New York Times

Company. p. AR1. Archived from the original on September 13,

2012. Retrieved July 10, 2012.

"December 2014." Discover Magazine. Web. 25 Nov. 2014.

"Frank Ocean's 'Orange' Revolution". NPR. Archived from theoriginal on September 13,

2012. Retrieved July 27, 2012."Frank Ocean: Channel Orange". Pitchfork Media. Archivedfrom the original on September 14,

2012. Retrieved July 12, 2012.

Gregg, Melissa, and Gregory J. Seigworth. The Affect Theory

Reader. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2010. Print.’

Kot, Greg (July 13, 2012). "Album review: Frank Ocean,'Channel Orange'". Chicago

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Tribune. Archived from the original on July 28, 2012. Retrieved

July 13, 2012.

"MyBrainNotes™.com." OCD Can Involve Malfunction of the Brain's Seeking

Instinct, including Dopamine Over-production. Web. 25 Nov.

2014.

"Panksepp's SEEKING System Concepts and Their Implications

for the Treatment of Depression with Deep-Brain

Stimulation." Academia.edu. Web. 25 Nov. 2014.

"Project MUSE - Life Writing and Intimate Publics: A

Conversation with Lauren Berlant." Project MUSE - Life

Writing and Intimate Publics: A Conversation with Lauren Berlant.

Web. 23 Nov. 2014.

"Sign In." Duke Journals. Duke University, n.d. Web. 23 Nov.

2014.

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