The debate between homosexual and heterosexual has always been based on the couple “inside” and the couple “outside.” They define themselves in terms of what they are not, for example heterosexuality defines itself in contrast to what it is not: homosexuality. The figure known as inside/outside encompasses language, subjectivity, while at the same time makes the structure of exclusion, oppression, and repudiation. But what makes outsides and insides come about? Where does the “pure and natural heterosexual inside” leave off and “an impure and unnatural homosexual outside” begin?
Heterosexuality has gotten the status as compulsory because it has presented that it is a practice that is driven by some internal obligation. The language and law that establishes heterosexuality is that of defense and protection. It is protecting itself from homosexuality, which is continually making advancements. Homosexuality is working through a similar defense pattern because it is not the norm and is a complicated choice.
The difference between hetero and homo, stated by Fuss, is that homo becomes the excluded which means that it stands out because it is the less likely choice for someone to make. Fuss believes that the homo is related to the hetero in the same way that the feminine is related to the masculine, one is more dominate over the other.
There has been recent work that states that any outside that is formulated is the consequence of there being a lack internal to the system it supplements. The greater the lack on the inside the greater the need for it on the outside. To protect itself against being recognized of the lack of the inside, the self defends itself against others. The borders that are set up are usually very unstable and heterosexuality can rarely ignore the closeness of the homosexual other.
‘Out’ seems to carry a double valence to gays and lesbians. On one hand it brings up the negative term in the hetero/homo binary. While on the other hand it suggests the process of coming out, a movement into a certain presence, speech, and cultural visibility. To be out, according to gay parlance, is to be inside the realm of the visible, the speakable, and the culturally intelligible. Nowadays many people would say that it is ‘in’ to be ‘out.’ It has been more culturally acceptable in recent years to be gay then is has been in the past.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Theorizing Hetero-and Homosexuality Diana Fuss
Normative Sexuality
This chapter is about the normative sexuality. It was written by Steven Seidman who is a professor for the State University of New York of Albany. He also has written several other pieces that relate to the practices of homosexuality and heterosexuality. This chapter starts off by discussing the differences between homosexuality and heterosexuality. Seidman talks about the social division between the homosexuality and heterosexuality starting around the 1950’s.
Seidman goes on in this chapter to discuss how the homosexual has been degraded in society and how society has chosen to make them invisible or segregated them from the public, including denial of civil rights and political representation. Meaning they are not allowed to enter the political realm. He states that the homosexual is a deviant and should be removed from the heterosexual public. Seidman discusses that gays are only allowed to express themselves in places that are not around the heterosexual. He says that these strategies are not trying to get rid of the homosexual but simply help the homosexual and the heterosexual keep their distance.
The homosexual is viewed and has been viewed as a pollutant or deviant since the 1950’s, whereas the heterosexual is seen as “pure”. This has caused the “in the closet” term. The gay population has been “in the closet” trying to pass themselves off as a heterosexual to the public. However because the homosexual doesn’t wish to be in the closet any longer they have been coming out and telling everyone they are of the homosexual identity. This has created great achievement for them such as with the civil rights and gay pride.
I know a few homosexuals and when I talked to them about why they never told anyone sooner they basically described what is being said in this chapter. They were afraid people would not see them the same way that they would be judged on their identity and not by their character and who they are. I don’t think this is right, people should like you no matter what you are the same person the only thing different is what you do in your private life and no one really needs to know that anyway. What has made our society judge the homosexual anyways? They are people just like you and me, I just do not understand why we feel the need to make them feel bad about themselves and the lifestyle the have chose. Even though the gay individuals are coming out more and more there are still those few who wish to remain in the closet for fear of not being accepted by their families or peers. The homosexual has come a far way but they are still not “normative” yet.
Near the end of this chapter Seidman talks about the two political responses to the normalization of homosexuality. First the sexual identity movements have emerged, meaning that the homosexual has taken a stand for themselves claiming they are a group in which has been victimized. 2nd, there has been a rise in gay politics, trying to change the fact that they were once seen as deviant to the fact that they are normal.
Overall this chapter discusses the issues that are associated with homosexuality and how the homosexual has really achieved a lot through out the years. There are many struggles that the homosexual has had to go through and even though there are not as many struggles as there once was they still do face some. There are also many heterosexuals who see the homosexual as deviant or abnormal for our society, and there are still people who feel the need to victimize the gay community. However, the majority of the people in our society are seeing homosexuality as becoming more normative. We are all the same the only thing different is our sexual preference and before you decide that you think their lifestyle is wrong put yourself in their shoes. What if it were the other way around how would you feel if everyone thought you were wrong for the way you live your life.
Chapter 39---Theorizing Hetero- and Homosexuality---Diana Fuss
As I read this chapter I found it very confusing. Fuss discusses different aspects of being a homosexual and heterosexual. At times it was hard to grip what she was saying, but I think I ended up getting the gist of it.
Fuss starts out saying that there is an “inside and outside” of society in general. What people accept in a community is the “in” and what people don’t accept is the “out”. Although, she then says that times have changed and it is no longer that simple. She gives the example of homo- and heterosexuality, “hetero/homo hierarchy, suggesting that new (and old) sexual possibilities are no longer thinkable in terms of a simple inside/outside dialectic”. Lines are now blurred in what is “acceptable” or “in” in the community and now the community and those individuals of both parties are readjusting.
The second paragraph states that, “It has everything to do with the structures of alienation, splitting, and identification which together produce a self and an other, a subject, and an object, and unconscious and a conscious, an interiority and an exteriority”. What I got out of this was that, even thought the lines are blurred of what is accepted in society those who aren’t fully accepted are being alienated. In this chapter we discuss homosexuality and heterosexuality, making heterosexuality the “in” concept. It’s been socially accepted in our society for so long that we look at it as the norm. Since we think that it’s the norm we tend to identify those who are a homosexual as being “different” or “not like us”. You tend to see this more with the older population (who tend to be not as accepting as the younger populations).
This is partially due to the fact that “the language and law that regulates the establishment of heterosexuality as both an identity and an institution, both a practice and a system, is the language and the law of defense and protection…” This means that it is instilled in the institution of society that you have a male and female in a relationship. I’m not saying this is right or wrong, this is something that I am just trying to translate from the text. Homosexuality scares people because it isn’t the norm that they were brought up to believe, it’s the “other”. It threatens the social norm which older generations believe is the “right” way to act.
Another important part of the chapter I found was the “coming out” stage of homosexuality. As someone “comes out of the closet” they actually are exploiting themselves as “different”. So as they come out they expect to not have to “hide” anymore from their true self, but as they do that they are excluded by those who believe what they believe is wrong. It’s very contradictory in the eyes of every homosexual on what is more important being “in” but feeling untrue to yourself, or being “out” and an open homosexual.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Third World Feminism
Introduction
Narayan begins by explaining that she wants to draw attention to the assumption made that Third World Feminists are basing their ideas on Western values, which is not exactly the case. This assumption seems to me to be very ethnocentric, as the assumption is that these feminists are comparing their theories to the standards of feminists in the developing world. She writes that Third World Feminists are responding to their own culture, not comparing it against the Western culture.
Speech and silence in the mother-tongue
Third world feminists are viewed as opposing their culture and adopting Westernization, but Narayan stresses that this is not actually the case. Narayan is from India, so her experiences are from an Indian feminist perspective. She writes that Indian culture influences women to be silent about problems in their lives, especially the inequalities inherent in their family life. Just because they don’t talk about them doesn’t mean that they aren’t understood to exist for these women. However, the feminists who are taking about the issues are being attacked for doing so. The cultural ideal of what a woman should address does not allow her to deal with the pains of everyday life. The experiences that Narayan has seen her mother go through have shown her these inequalities, even though her mother is unable to support her feminist views. She writes, “they fail to see how much what we are is precisely a response to the very things they have taught us, how much we have become the daughters they have shaped us into becoming.” She and other feminists have become familiar with these issues because of their mothers. These mothers regard feminism as a symptom of their own failure to raise good daughters, but it is actually a response to their upbringing. Narayan writes that Third world feminism is not because of Westernization, but rather it simply was born in the same way as Western feminism. Both are response to inequality, but in India it is responding to Indian issues, not in response to Western values. Feminism around the world has developed in response to women’s issues in each of those different parts of the world. To suggest that Indian women are striving for Western values suggests that all the inequalities that they have are Indian values, which negatively reflects Indian culture in general.
The burdens of history: colonialism, nationalism, feminism, and ‘Westernization’
In this section Narayan discusses how colonialism influenced anti-Western sentiments. The two cultures saw each other as the ‘other,’ while ignoring actual similarities and differences. This anti-Western view has been used to attack feminists, whose ideas are seen as outside of Indian culture. Narayan talks about ‘totalizations,’ which she defines as “pictures that cast values and practices that pertained to specific privileged groups within the community as values of the ‘Culture’ as a whole.” These totalizations emphasize certain parts of culture and perpetuate “cultural superiority.” Also, elites justified the mistreatments of women as cultural traditions, which were then used to justify an attack on any criticisms, which were seen as siding with Western values. The emphasis was not on what is best for the women, but on which culture is better. The fact that each culture is not perfect was ignored, and served to support and perpetuate traditional gender roles. Nationalism was born out of the fight to oppose Western influence, and the issues of Indian women were trapped in the fight. Nationalist pride urged women to return to “traditional roles” and values. This attack on feminists and the accusation that they were pushing Westernization reminded me of the way that people view anything to do with Marx as communism.
Selective labeling and the myth of ‘continuity’
Here Narayan writes about the issues of hypocrisy and resisting change. She writes that the traditional way of life is being put on a pedestal. However, just because something has lasted for so long doesn’t mean that it is perfect. She also points out that the traditionalists are ignoring the fact that the culture they are admiring has not always existed, but has gone through changes to become what it is. Nationalists see “casting independence from colonialism as a recovery of this ‘ancient civilization.’” However, they are hypocritical, as they are picking and choosing what elements to keep and what ones to denounce. They use what is convenient, what perpetuates that way of life, such as using television as a medium to spread this message of anti-Westernization. Acknowledging other elements that have developed after Western influence is seen as an “unforgivable betrayal,” yet everybody, not just the feminists, have been influenced by Westernization. Some things are taken for granted as okay simply because they are defined as good, while others are accepted as bad. Narayan uses female sexuality as an example, as it is a taboo and repressed subject. She writes that “the gender of actors…seems to be one factor that determines whether a particular change is regarded as ‘Westernization that is disrespectful of our traditions.’” The masculine world can change, but not the feminine. Westernization is used as a label to justify unwanted parts of the culture. Third World feminists are unnerving because they criticize the status quo. Narayan emphasizes that the feminist point of view comes from the Indian culture itself, not from outside influences. Their perspective from inside the culture is what gives feminists their perspective on its issues.
Ch 40- Normative Heterosexuality
This chapter starts out by discussing the differences of heterosexuality and homosexuality. Starting around the 1950s, people began viewing the homosexuals as deviant. Seidman elaborates how homosexuals were not to be seen in public. The homosexual individuals are basically segregated from the heteros, and removed from public visibility. Gays may participate in the gay culture, but only in places that are private, and not near heterosexuals.
Seidman says that it is the activities that the homosexuals participate in that are looked down upon, rather than focusing only on the individual. By separating the different sexual orientations, the idea that one was good, and the other was bad was created. Since homosexuality was looked at as being polluted, heterosexuality was viewed as pure, and clean.
The author goes on to the idea of living in the “closet.” A well known term for gays, living in the closet was created in order for homosexuals to hide their true selves. They would mask their homosexuality in hopes of others viewing them as heterosexuals. However, this does not settle well with homosexuals. Seidman says: “This is the irony of the closet: intended to contain homosexuality the closet makes homosexuality into a primary identity and produces a desire to come out.”
Because gays want to come out, and let the world know that they are not heterosexual, it has produced much success. It has also decreased the barriers set between heterosexuals and homosexuals. People of each sexual orientation are now intertwining, and meshing. Being homosexual is starting to be viewed as normal, and not so polluted, like previously thought.
Even though homosexuality is not as repressed as before, many homosexual individuals still hide their identity, for fear of not being accepted by family, the community, co-workers, etc. So while some gays are living their life publicly the way they ought to, others are still hiding themselves to some or everyone. Many people still view heterosexuality as the dominating orientation and view it as the right one. Therefore, homosexuality is not fully normative, yet. The way I see it is people are afraid of what they don’t know. This is why heterosexuals are so put off by the idea of someone being gay. They are not able to understand their feelings, way of thinking, and life style the exact way that a homosexual does.
Seidman talks about a movie titled “Philadelphia,” which is about a man, Andy, is fired for having AIDS. The man hires a heterosexual lawyer, Joe, who initially struggles with the fact that the fired man is homosexual. In the end, the lawyer views the other man as a normal individual, and equalized. However, there are some critiques the author takes with the movie. Such that Joe and Andy are so closely similar in terms of living a masculine life, having a relationship, and being a hard worker. What distinguishes them from another is that Andy is homosexual and Joe is not. The movie sends the message that homosexuality is okay, as long as it is identical to the ideal individual, which is heterosexual.
There are two responses to normalization. First, there are various groups inside of the homosexual culture. These groups have had to fight for their rights against the heterosexuals and even the homosexuals. Second, queer politics. And this, queer politics, I did not fully understand other than “queer politics struggles against normalizing any identity.” There should be an end to classifying something as good or bad, normal or deviant.
The essay goes on to discuss the idea of not calling sex acts normal, which is communicative sexual ethics. Sexual acts would be viewed based upon moral features. Examples would be whether or not both parties agreed to the behavior, are those involved acting responsibly. In communicative sexual ethic, acts between people should be considered personal choices, rather than looking at the moral standpoint. Seidman gives S/M as an example that lacks moral meaning.
So overall, what I got is that there is that line separating homosexuals from heterosexuals. People think of the two orientations as completely different, one is right, and one is wrong. But as time progresses, people come to realize that maybe there isn’t one correct way of living. Homosexuals are just as similar as heterosexuals, minus their sexual preference. This has allowed those who are homosexual to feel like they can express themselves the way they truly feel, without being reprimanded or condemned for it. It’s all about trying to understand a life different from your own.
Third World Feminism
“Many feminists from Third World contexts confront voices that are eager to convert any feminist criticism they make of their culture into a mere symptom of their “lack of respect for their culture,” rooted in the “Westernization” that they seem to have caught like a disease.”
It seems as if those who do express their feminist ideas are treated as if they have some type of disease. This supposed disease happens to be referred to as Westernization, as if thinking for themselves is some type of disease. I feel like Narayan hit the nail on the head with this one. We’ll take the United States as a prime example for Westernization. In the United States women are, for the most part, treated equally and are allowed to speak their minds. It is also true that the Unites States is an egalitarian country and that is the norm here. In places like Ghana, Africa though this isn’t true. Ghana is a male dominated society and women there are to obey their husbands and question nothing. So it makes sense when I think about how insane it would seem to men if women fought back and spoke their mind, to them it would very much seem like some kind of disease. The truth is though that these women aren’t just following the example of American women, it’s entirely possible that they’ve figured out they shouldn’t be treated that way all on their own.
“I also remember my mother saying years later, as a put down for my being argumentative and critical, contrasting my character unfavorably with hers, with a pride and satisfaction that were difficult for me to understand, “When I came to Bombay right after I was married, I was so innocent I did not know how to even begin to argue…” My earliest memory is of seeing you cry. I heard all your stories of your misery. The shape your ‘silence’ took is in part what has incited me to speech.”
I find this passage both upsetting and moving. Narayan’s mother believes that she is innocent because she didn’t know how to argue. She listened to anything people would tell her because she truly believed that’s how things should be done, and who could blame her that’s what she was taught, but she acts as if she is better than her daughter for it which is so wrong. In that culture though that is the norm so I can’t really blame the mother.
In my reality innocence has nothing to do with whether or not you’re outspoken. I picture a child as innocent because they haven’t been corrupted by the world yet, and truth be told children certainly don’t remain silent and they aren’t submissive! Then later in the text Narayan described her earliest memory and it’s of her mother crying. She watched her mother suffer and from that she learned to speak up and be “argumentative” as her mother said. As I said in the previous passage these women aren’t learning from the western world, they’re learning at young ages by watching their mothers crying alone.
“Thus, both my mother and specific cultural context in which I was raised saw education as a good thing for daughters, encouraged us to do well at our studies, saw it as prudent that daughters have the qualifications necessary to economically support themselves…At the same time, they were critical of the effects of the very things they encouraged-nervous about our intoxication with ideas and our insistence on using ideas acquired from books to question social rules and norms of life…”
Here is where it kind of gets a little funny. Parents, friends, and all those who blame western life for the defiance of these third world feminists don’t even realize that their very social institutions are setting this in motion.
These people are truly in denial. They don’t want anyone to get new ideas but at the same time they want them to be properly educated, which is pretty much a contradiction. These mothers want their daughters to get the proper skills to find a job but it’s almost like they don’t want them to enjoy it. As soon as their daughters start to look at their careers as more than an instrument to get money they get all upset because they don’t think things should work like that. This all seems so crazy to me! It makes complete sense though because that’s how the mothers were raised and that’s what they know.
“…our points of view are no more able to be “outside” those who would dismiss us, and our points of view are no more able to be “outside” our cultural traditions, than the perspectives of those who label us “Westernized…” we know only too well that our criticisms and contestations are not uniquely “representative” of our culture, we have the power and the ability to question whether the voices of our critics are any more uniquely “representative” of our complex and changing cultural realities.”
I feel like she’s really bringing it home here. She’s not even attacking those who view differently which would be so easy because that’s all she’s heard all her life! All she wants people to know is that she does think differently and she’s not the only one. Nobody is right in this situation and it’s wrong to dismiss anyone’s beliefs. She refuses to believe that those who dismiss her are representative of her culture. Narayan has opened her mind and is refusing to let others tell her that she’s wrong which is really inspiring, especially when you consider how difficult that must be when your family rejects your ideas.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Gender as a Social Practice
The chapter “Gender as a Social Practice” spoke about how gender is a social practice and it affects the major structures and institutions of the world. Institutions are divided into being either masculine or feminine (for example, the state is masculine because “the overwhelming majority of top office-holders are men because there is a gender configuring of recruitment and promotion…internal division of labour and systems of control...” etc.).(370) However, it is made clear that gender and masculinity has nothing to do with reproduction when the author discusses the exclusion of gays in the military as important to military officials to preserve the cultural importance of a specific definition of what is masculine.
Gender is an “internally complex structure” (370). Connell says that power, production and cathexis can explain the structure of gender and masculinity. First, power relations are created by the “overall subordination of women and dominance of men” (371). It endures through modern role reversals (women-headed households, female teachers of males, etc.) and resistance, like feminism. Second, Connell says production relations exist because of gendered division of labor. Females do “womanly” tasks—cooking, cleaning—and males do “manly” tasks—outdoor work. Unequal wages can be found here and the author says that it isn’t a statistical accident that males head major corporations and private fortunes, because the “accumulation of wealth has become firmly linked to the reproductive arena” (371). Finally, cathexis, or emotional attachment, says that even sexual desire is gendered.
Gender isn’t exclusive from other forms of social structures; it is also affected by race and class. Masculinity can’t be thought of without considering what it is in relation to black and white men. At the same time, it can’t also be thought of without considering what masculinity means for a working-class man versus a middle-class man. Connell says “to understand gender, then we must constantly go beyond gender. The same applies in reverse. We cannot understand class, race or global inequality without constantly moving towards gender” (372).
While understanding that there are different kinds of masculinity is important, it is also important to study the associations between the differences. The author speaks of hegemony as a “cultural dynamic by which a group claims and sustains a leading position in social life” (373). Hegemonic masculinity refers to the dominant position of men over women. It can be altered though, as groups challenge the dominance.
Within the hegemony, there is dominance and subordination between groups of men themselves. Homosexual males can be seen as culturally dominated by heterosexual males through exclusion, abuse, violence, discrimination and boycotts. Heterosexual men and boys can also be subject to this cruelty if they are seen as not living up to the masculine norm through use of names such as wimp, sissy, and mother’s boy.
Masculinity is complicated because of the fact that not many men live up to the hegemonic standard. “Marriage, fatherhood and community life often involve extensive compromises with women rather than naked domination or an uncontested display of authority” (374). However, most men gain from the hegemony simply through the advantage of being men.
Marginalization “refers to the relations between masculinities in dominant and subordinate classes or ethnic groups” (375). Connell says that power given to each group is determined by the masculine hegemony and can be given to individuals as they see fit. His example said that a black athlete may be exalted for his talent, but the fame and respect the individual receives doesn’t tickle down to all black men receiving respect.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Chapter 8 The Political Unconscious
This chapter, “The Political Unconscious”, was a very extremely difficult reading for me to comprehend as well. I felt similar to what most of the other postings stated. The language used and the way in which Jameson wrote was different. It almost seemed as if he had so much to say and kind of mixed it all together. What were many of these theorists thinking when they wrote about some of this stuff? Although the material tough to decipher, I was able to pull out a few small points.
In today’s society and throughout the course of history, what is it that shapes our political view points and decisions? The answer is our family, friends, and experiences we have encountered. In other words our political unconscious. This has become a major focus and contribution in relation to political party association. Jameson also pointed out in the chapter how the world of politics is continually changing, which also reflects the view points of people. I was also able to somewhat understand the importance of recording history through non bias documentation. But, it has become obvious that people’s views, especially political views is a large contributor to how things are recorded today.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Cultural Studies, Stuart Hall
In this article Stuart Hall examines the various ways that structuralism has shaped culture studies. Hall begins by discussing how the defination of culture has changed from consisting of texts and artifacts towards a more abstract understanding of culture as a seperate social practice. This abstraction fails to consider the historical and social context of cultural development and doesn't how the dominant structures in a culture repress other other cultural practices.
Marxist structuralism examines cultural practices such as economy or politics as being interactive and believes that all elements of society effect each other. These forms of structuralism explore the impact of human activity similar to Marx's discussion of consciousness and being and believe that every social practice is related and builds off each other to create the culture.
Hall then goes on to discuss in which ways Marxist structuralism is problematic to cultural studies and discusses the theories of Levi-Strauss and Althusser but he provides very little background information and there were too many unfamiliar terms and concepts for me to understand what he was talking about.
Hall notes that one of the most important and influential forms of structionalism on cultural studies is feminist theory. Feminism has forced cultural studies to reevaluate almost every area of study by examining how social formation is impacted by patriarchy and oppression. Feminism has transformed the organizational and theoretical study of culture because it challenges the former intellectual discourses and encourages critical thought.
Political Unconsciousness
This chapter on political unconsciousness by Fredryk Jameson was interesting yet a bit hard to grasp. The writing style was meant for a reader with a large vocabulary which made it hard to simply pick up and read. I had to read many of the paragraphs more than once in order to try to understand what the author is talking about. Like most soc concepts, to understanding of political unconscious one must break a large idea into smaller more complex ideas. This chapter brings back Marx theories which I have always found quite complex and harder to read.
The chapter focuses on capitalist society. The capitalist society is constantly changing, and when the politics of that society changes the political unconsciousness changes as well. The political unconsciousness shapes the way we think and our language. Our thoughts and language changes through political unconsciousness as the values in a given society changes.
The central theme of The Political Unconsciousness is to historicize narratives and to understand them within the framework of Marx theories. Jameson does this by deciphering the difference between studying to nature of the ‘objective’ structures of a cultural text and studying it by interpreting categories or codes through which we read and receive the text in question. Most people don’t question text, you study a text book and you learn it. But Jameson goes deeper and argues that the object of study is less the text itself than the interpretations though which we attempt to confront and appropriate it. The political unconsciousness is a complex study of analysis to explore multiple paths that help us understand culture as symbolic acts.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
The political Unconscious
When I first read the chapter on the political unconscious by Fredric Jameson I felt like it was a bit over my head. The reading is very thick and the author has a very intellectual vocabulary, when I slowed down and focused on each individual paragraph I found that the author had a very interesting message. Now I had to really concentrate and I may have got this wrong but what had everything to do with language. According to the author the political climate of a capitalist society is constantly changing and with the changing political climate comes a changing political unconsciousness. Political unconsciousness, or what I believe to be political unconsciousness, is the current view of what is good and what is bad. The political unconsciousness shapes the way we think about things and the language we use. By shaping the language it shapes how we think about anything. How is that so? When people think they think in their language, that is how they describe it and process what is going on around them and therefore the language controls thought.
The author stresses the importance of history and historicizing. It is important to keep track of history but the problem the author has is how history should be recorded. It is a common belief that history should be recorded and researched in the most objective of ways. That means no opinions and no romanticism. The words of text books and other such scientific writings should be the means in which we see our past and preserve it. However, Jameson has a problem with that. His problem arises from his previous conclusions that language is shaped by the political unconsciousness.
If the political unconsciousness shapes the way we speak and think and the political unconscious is in constant flux due to the ever changing capitalist society than the language used to describe any sort of event would reflect the values of the society from which it was described in. The problem with that is the events described are presented as fact and completely objective and no one gives a second thought to the societal bias in which the events were written. If the political unconscious which the writings reflect is ignored than later generations or societies who read the historical texts of previous generations will have a skewed view of the past and not even realize it.
If recording the texts scientifically and without emotion is flawed and will indeed cause variations in the factuality of history than what can society look to for the best view of history and historical societies? The author suggests looking away from the “facts” and to stop shunning emotion but embrace emotion, embrace romanticism, and look toward literature. Literature, even if fictional, allows the reader to connect with the author and really experience what life was like in these dead societies. Literature gets into the mind of the author and the reader can than imagine how the author was thinking and more importantly, how the people of his society thought. Literature is also important because it lets the reader move past how individuals felt and thought and move on to how society worked as a whole. The literature tells stories that are fictional, but it let’s the reader know how the society of the time would of reacted to said stories and/or events. With the reader being able to understand why things happened in history it gives than a better understanding of what happened which then in turn gives them a less bias view of the past.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Outline Of A Theory Of Practice
From the mechanics of the model to the dialectic of strategies: In this part of the chapter, Bourdieu talks about how there are three modes of theoretical knowledge which make up the mechanics of the model. The three modes of theoretical knowledge are primary knowledge, practical and tacit. Primary knowledge can be looked at as the knowledge we have gained over the years of growing up. Primary knowledge could also be the different rules and laws society has to keep people in order. Practical can be thought of as the knowledge that humans have that allow them to make decisions based on what they know is right or wrong. For example, practical knowledge could be the knowing within that the killing of another human being is wrong therefore, causing individuals to make practical decisions.
The last part that makes up the theoretical knowledge is called tacit. I experienced some confusion with this mode. From what I got from it is that tacit is the knowledge within that “we” do not know “we” possess. The tacit knowledge is valuable and can only be experienced when close interaction between two occurs creating trust. As defined by Reference.com, “With tacit knowledge, people are not often aware of the knowledge they possess or how it can be valuable to others. Tacit knowledge is considered more valuable because it provides context for people, places, ideas, and experiences. Effective transfer of tacit knowledge generally requires extensive personal contact and trust” (www.reference.com/browse/tacit).
All three of these modes are what makes up how and the reason for the way we act towards each other. Later in this section of the chapter Bourdieu goes on talking about how “time” plays an important role. I did not get what he was trying to make of this. Was he trying to say that the time in which we live has an important part as to how we act towards each other and the degree at which our knowledge is?
From the rules of honour to the sense of honour: This section of the chapter deals with honour and how it is obtained. The sense of honour is not obtained as simply by saying you’re honorable. One of the rules that Bourdieu discusses is that the sense of feeling honorable comes over a long period of time by which the individual basically played their cards correctly. Bourdieu describes how every action a person makes there is a counter action to it and different consequences to each action. The individual must make the correct decisions and know how to handle each counter action in order to be considered honorable.
As stated by Bourdieu, “This practical knowledge, based on the continuous decoding of the perceived but not consciously noticed indices of the welcome given to actions already accomplished, continuously carries out the checks and corrections intended to ensure the adjustment of practices and expressions to the reactions and expectations of the other agents. It functions like a self-regulating device programmed to redefine courses of action in accordance with information received on the reception of information transmitted and on the effects produced by that information” (Bourdieu pg.84).
Practice and discourse about practice: The first paragraph of this section was extremely wordy and I had confusion picking out what was important to the section. However, the second paragraph was easier for me to comprehend. The second paragraph basically talks about how one of the benefits of following the rules and conforming to society is prestige and respect. I think what Bourdieu is trying to say is that an individual who does conform to society can be looked at by others as responsible therefore, classifying that individual as prestige who is deserving of respect.
As described by Bourdieu, “Thus, quite apart from the direct profit derived from doing what the rule prescribes, perfect conformity to the rule can bring secondary benefits such as the prestige and respect which almost invariably reward and action apparently motivated by nothing other than pure, disinterested respect for the rule” (Bourdieu pg.85).
Symbolic capital: At the begging of the paragraph Bourdieu talks about how practice does not conform to economic calculation. It does not even conform even if it looks as if it is. The only way to not fall into the ethnocentric naiveties is to fully use economism. The economism is obtained is by providing economic calculation to all the goods.
Modes of domination: This part talks about how economic practice is the general practice, that is competent of treating all the other practices. It treats all practices even if they are unbiased. It also goes on to talk about how economic practices are used to maximize symbolic profit and material profit.
Power/Knowledge
Foucault begins by discussing knowledge. He describes a realization that recently there has been a “vulnerability to criticism of things.” He discusses totalitarian theories, but says that those theories are discussed with an understanding that nothing will be done about them. He writes that the spirit of criticism has changed. It no longer relies on other theories, but goes in the direction it pleases. This can give it some independence, but means that it no longer represents a unified theory.
This leads Foucault to discuss how criticism is being suppressed due to an emphasis that leads away from intellectual theory. The importance of context is directly tied to this issue. Here he talks about the functionalism theory; it thus seems to me that he is commenting on social facts and how they have become a distraction that leads away from the whole picture. He sees criticism as working through what he calls “popular knowledge,” which is not common sense exactly, but is the knowledge held by the average person, who is not trying to see life through a sociological perspective. The “historical knowledge” and “popular knowledge” are thus two very important parts of subjugated knowledge.
Subjugated knowledge is “concerned with a historical knowledge of struggles.” This reminded me of the idea that history is written by the conqueror, meaning that those in power control the perspective of history that the people are told. We are told that “knowledge is power.” Foucault determines that true understanding of past struggles cannot occur under a tyrannical control of knowledge. But that understanding is crucial to our understanding of current events. He claims that adherence to strict theory should not be allowed to block discussion of genealogies, which he says is the “anti-science.” “For it is really against the effects of the power of a discourse that is considered to be scientific that the genealogy must wage its struggle.” My interpretation of this is that by imposing a specific view on knowledge, you are limiting where that knowledge can lead you. Theory should open doors to knowledge, not prevent you from entering them. Turning theory into science imposes rules and limitations.
Foucault writes that labeling theories such as Marxism as a science diminishes and disqualifies aspects of them. You cannot force theories to become sciences, as this “isolate[s] it from all the discontinuous forms of knowledge that circulate about it.” I thought he summed this idea up well when he wrote, “a genealogy should be seen as a kind of attempt to emancipate historical knowledges from that subjection, to render them, that is, capable of opposition and of struggle against the coercion of a theoretical, unitary, formal and discourse.”
Foucault then discusses power. He says that recently there has been a new form of power which “permits time and labour, rather than wealth and commodities, to be extracted from bodies.” This new form of labor is tied to the need for material wealth rather then an obligation enforced by a sovereign. This method of enforcement immediately reminded me of capitalism, where the system enforces itself as workers must participate in work so that they can afford to live a materialistic life that is demanded by the system itself. We all know the phrase ‘time is money.’ I also thought of industrialization in general during this discussion of power. Workers are obligated by the system to participate in it, but they do not create unique products, but rather lend their services to whatever mass production is necessary. Later in the passage, Foucault attributed this system to bourgeois society and indicated that it has influenced industrial capitalism and the society which it operates in.
Foucault describes how sovereignty relates to this shift. Sovereignty controls the “displacement and appropriation” of power. He writes that the new system utilizes constant surveillance, while the old system relied on obligations to enforce itself. By controlling goods and wealth, sovereignty made the people dependent. The new system enforces the idea of “minimum expenditure for the maximum return,” which allows the idea that each worker is independent as far as their ability to influence what they contribute and receive in return.
The difference between the systems then leads to the subject of the ideology of sovereignty. Foucault maintains that its system allows a “system of right” which assigns inherent power to itself. This hides its actual mechanism of keeping power. Through democracy, sovereignty has given assumed independence while actually maintaining control according to the mechanisms of the system. It uses scientific disciplinary measures to keep this control. Democracy depends on “an organization based on public right” which is linked to “disciplinary coercions whose purpose is in fact to assure the cohesion of this same social body.” Sovereignty and discipline then contribute to the maintenance of power in society. This refers back to what Foucault was saying about knowledge. To my understanding, we have the power to pursue knowledge, but the realm in which we search is limited by the discipline we are viewing that information through. What seems to present itself as an unlimited spectrum of knowledge is in fact limited by the system used to look at it. Foucault says that these are presented as “natural rules,” or norms.
Foucault explains that he is not trying to outline the limits that have been imposed on knowledge. He has rather been trying to draw attention to how the juxtaposition that sovereignty and discipline has shaped that knowledge. He writes that this has led to a “society of normalization” due to the conflict between the two, which fuels intellectual discourse. It is shaped by the varying balance between the two. Both contribute to the continuation to discourse. To escape these two ideas, a new idea of right must be entertained. Foucault then discusses repression, which connects to sovereignty in that it references the rights of the individual, and to discipline it that its meaning is derived from discourses within the area of science. Thus understanding of repression is tied into the very ideas that it is being used to examine.
Power/Knowledge
The chapter on Power/Knowledge starts with Foucault explaining how criticism has made many people and things vulnerable in the past years. He talks about how totalitarian theories anything useful for research and can actually be a barrier for research. He mentions that lately its “not theory but life that matters, not knowledge but reality, not books but money etc.”, He then describes an idea called subjugated knowledges, which from my understanding would mean certain knowledges that were suppressed in some way.
Foucault says that subjugated knowledges means two things: first, those blocs of knowledge that were present but suppressed and which could only be exposed with criticism. Secondly, it is knowledge that is unable to do its task and therein disqualified. Foucault talks about a “historical knowledge of struggles”. “What emerges out of this is something one might call a genealogy, or rather a multiplicity of genealogical researches, a painstaking rediscovery of struggles together with the rude memory of their conflict”. He later goes on to describe genealogy as combining knowledge learned from books and local memories to learn about historical struggles and being able to apply that knowledge “tactically”.
In the middle of page 75, I seem to lose a sense of what Foucault is trying to express. He talks about genealogies being anti-scientist. Genealogies apparently wouldn’t ask if Marxism or psychoanalysis is a science, but rather, what is the power you’re hoping would come out of it if such things were labeled as a science.
The goal of the genealogist, from what I gathered of the text on page 76 is to make sure historical knowledges are not suppressed and to “reactivate local knowledges”. This of course would go against scientific hierarchy of the order of knowledge.
The last paragraph of page 76 to the end of page 77 gets quite cloudy for me. He’s talking about a new power, but I’ve re-read it a few times and still feel I’m grasping at straws. He mentions the new power being an invention of the bourgeois and then talks about the theory of sovereignty for a few paragraphs. This is something I hope to bring up in class to get clarification on.
The last two pages of the chapter seem a bit clearer. He talks about modern society (that is the nineteenth century to his present time) as having to balance between legislation based on “public rights” and a “closely linked grid of disciplinary coercions whose purpose is in fact to assure the cohesion of the same social body”. It’s basically sovereignty on the left and a discipline mechanism on the right. He also mentions that in his present day, it seems like people want to object to the discipline side and feel entitled to the more sovereign side of things.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Ch. 3 Mythical Realities
Wow did I find this very confusing as first. This chapter is shown through a myth of when Europeans and Hawaiians first came encountered with each other. The Hawaiians at first were a little bit worried and always stuck with their same traditions until they were no longer frightened of change and could actually learn from the Europeans.
Sahlins begins the chapter with community and language, I think he is looking at it as a whole and each part connects with each other and leads into new parts or new beginnings. You need all the parts that will fit together to have a community or language that will have full meaning. The problem with language as Sahlins says there is a “dilemma,” of speech and langue. This is because the speaker can use language in a different way than the listener would because everyone interprets things differently. To me from the myth of the Hawaiians this can sometimes work out to be a good thing as long as you can learn from the different interpretations.
The myth is the “Resolution and Discovery.” What I got from it is how culture and society is consonantly changing over time. If people always stayed the same, spoke the same language, stayed put in one society; never moved then nothing would change. But once people give other ones a chance like the Hawaiians and the Europeans then the past can become a stepping stone towards the future instead of the past and future always staying the same.
It is crazy to go back in time and remember how women were treated at one point. As Sahlins states “moreover, as men ate in communion with the gods, every meal itself a sacrifice, women could not dine with them, nor could their own food be cooked in the same oven’s as men’s.” Thankfully culture has changed over time. With this myth if the Europeans would never of sailed to the Hawaiians women could still be mistreated to this day, since the Europeans showed how men and women eat and sail together.
All and all what I got from this chapter is how community and language is not always going to be a “cultural reproduction.” This is because each decade new things are being produced not just within one culture but from others that add to the change. One has to be open to new ideas and change even how much we can be scared at first or hate it at first.
Sorry commenters if I was completely off I struggled a bit with this chapter please feel free to be completely open if I was wrong or on the right track.
Mythical Realities
this chapter is basically about structure. it starts out talking about the structure of language and moves into the interactive structure of Europeans sailors and Hawaiian chieftains and their underlings.
what I thought was something to with mythical writings, really turned into something that I wasnt looking forward to reading. it starts out talking about how language can be a structure. particularly in speech but we will get to that in a minute. It talks about how symbols are used with other symbols making a structure called dialect. How we we use dialect to tell history so we must come to understand history as structure since history is just words put together in symbols. I found this part of the reading hard to understand, but I got the underlying meaning of structure.
The second part of the chapter and on to the end talks about the structure and what happens in those structures as a result of the customs. It basically tells how Europeans sailors came to the Hawaiian islands and caused problems because they did not know the structure of the Hawaiian hierarchy. things like touching the highest standing chief and allowing women onto the ships when they are under the tabu.
So my basic understanding of this chapter is how we can take one structure and another structure and how both of those structures will change do to that interaction.
On Ethnographic Allegory
This article by James Clifford is a study on how society perceives other ethnicity's, that is to say with allegories. He made a great example of a study conducted by two different sociologist Mead and Freeman who both did a study of the Simoan culture. The two had very different views toward the culture and based most of the study on allegories rather then science. After that Clifford describes a ethnographic perspective towards women who are regarded very differently in semi-nomadic societies then settled cultures. Ultimately allegory reveals to be the best way to understand why women are the way they are in society using an example women named Nisa. Clifford goes on to describe how anthropology is not a good way to understand cross-cultural differences because they often degrade to "just-so stories". More importantly using anthropology alone is not a good way to fully understand cultures. Clifford goes on to describe the anthropological view of doomed cultures which was devised at the dawn of imperial colonialism is diminishing because of the new ethnographic allegory.
Eventually Clifford concludes that there is no definite way to separate the facts from the allegories when it comes to cultural perspectives, the meanings are uncontrollable, allegories pose the political and ethnic dimensions, you will always find allegories in ethnography's and readers/writers understand the way they view their own cultures.
Clifford over-elaborated on everything and in my opinion could have made this chapter half as long not to mention use more lam ens terms because some words he used were new to me. However this is an important topic because most people do not understand how to perceive other cultures.
Chp 4 (Ethnogrpahic Allegory)
I enjoyed reading this chapter on Ethnographic Allegory because it showed a previously lacking creative side of sociology through writing. Victor Turner was quoted in saying about ethnography, “social performances enact powerful stories-mythic and commonsensical - that provide the social process with rhetoric, a mode of employment, and a meaning.” This quote is helpful in understanding ethnography.
When dealing with Ethnographic writing it is important to recognize that these stories are fiction. These stories are not actual events, but the emotions in the story can directly relate to a person’s real feelings or can relate to a similar event in that person’s life. “Embodied in written reports, these stories simultaneously describe real cultural events and make additional, moral, ideological, and even cosmological statements.”
The book gives a great example of an ethnographic allegory writing called The Life and Works of a Kung Woman, by Marjorie Shostak. This excerpt is a story about childbirth done “the Kung way” in a village alone. The story is emotional journey that takes you through the experience that a women in her village goes through while giving child birth. The woman is all alone in her village and realizes she is giving birth. The woman is confused, she never gave birth before, and you can feel her emotional pain. Here is a couple of good quotes from the story, “I lay there and felt the pains as they came, over and over again,” “After she was born, I sat there, I didn’t know what to do,” “She started to cry. I just sat there looking at her.” When you read the whole excerpt you will be able to hear and feel the emotions through the woman’s voice.
The story requires the reader to imagine a different cultural norm but recognize a common human experience, and that’s what these ethnographic writings are all about. The story implies both local cultural meaning and a general story of birth. Any woman who has ever given birth might be able to relate to a portion of this story, and at the same time the emotions evoked in the story could relate to an experience someone had in a totally different context. For example the women giving birth in the story say’s she didn’t know what to do.
Not to over simplify this concept, but a relatable story could be if a student is totally lost on a very important test, that same emotion of feeling lost and confused can be related to the story of a women giving childbirth in a village. Crazy, yes, does it make sense, I think so. “Any story has a propensity to generate another story in the mind of its reader, to repeat and displace some prior story.” These writings are very metaphorical.“We may then safely define allegorical writing as the employment of one set of agents and images with actions and accompaniments correspondent, so as to convey, while in disguise, either moral qualities or conceptions of the mind that are not in themselves objects of the senses, or other images, agents, fortunes, and circumstances so that the difference is everywhere presented to the eye or imagination, while the likeness is suggested to the mind; and this connectedly, so that the parts combine to form a consistent whole.”
This last quote was basically the books complicated definition of what I was trying to explain earlier. There are three stages that allegorical writing registers. The Kung women story has theses three and they include
1. The representation of a coherent cultural subject as source of scientific knowledge
2. The construction of a gendered subject
3. The story of a mode of ethnographic production and relationship.
This chapter was not hard to read and a nice break from the ever so complicated writing’s of Marx and those other psycho sociologists.
Chapter 29 The Culture of Industry
This chapter by Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno is basically analyzing how capitalism has cultural industries. First they mention how urban living is a symbol of international production. They described the way the center of the city is usually the most prosperous and the outskirts look like slums in an essence cities crystallize as a model of our culture.
Then they covered communication, the difference between radio and telephone. At the time he wrote this in 1944 radio was used more for mass media then music. They talked about how the radio is a better indication of our culture because it is used for advertising and entertainment. What is on the radio personified what Americans at the time were interested in hearing but he warns not to believe everything your hear on the radio.
Then they mentioned the movies and how they capture reality but are low on the detail of the world. He goes on to describe the physiological effects of how little thought you need to understand a movie and I believe he is hinting to the films hidden advertisements.
They even mention how our impulses are sold on the mass market. Such as sexual material and this was written in 1944 when censorship was very heavy so I can’t image how sexual material was sold back then.
Overall the two mention how ideologies are marketed in so many ways and they also referred to only one ideology being promoted and therefore accepted by the public. This makes me believe the point of this article was to warn the consumer that there our other ideologies and the culture of capitalism is not always true.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
Walter Benjamin’s definition of the phrase “work of art” is very unique as he relates to the term aura. The best way to define aura is when something has a distinctive quality to it and/or character to it. To add, Benjamin goes into greater depths to explain that it is important to find a relation to the natural world and to see if the work of art is related to certain types of values (cult or exhibition, as stated in the text). Benjamin also creates another interesting perspective explaining that we humans use our experiences of art and media to create our entire sensory experience of the world. I’ve personally never thought twice how my sensory experiences were developed in life, let alone consider art is the dictator of these. As it relates to media, Benjamin goes further and claims that film is what truly manifests media. This is much easier to understand because film and media occur on television, one of the most influential pieces of technology to Americans today.
Benjamin goes on to trace the development of the means of production as it relates to art work. For Greeks, the only means possible back then were casting and stamping, casting being used for many forms of statues. Shortly thereafter, a method of woodcutting became available and this made graphic art mechanically reproducible as more copies could be made. He goes on to explain that there is just one problem with the reproduction of a piece of artwork: it’s presence in time and its unique existence. This dictates that no matter how perfect any piece of artwork is in a given time and place, it is most clearly understood back in it’s timeframe of production. This would seem because the creator of the artwork had more than likely produced the artwork based off of how the times and conditions of society were back at that given time, not necessarily planning for what might be anticipated in x number of years. Therefore, if someone tried to forge another person’s artwork, the forged piece would have absolutely no aura because the one forging hasn’t based the artwork off of anything except proving that one is dumb enough to copy another artist. This form of copying can be best described when he states:“The technique of reproduction detaches the reproduced object from the domain of tradition. By making many copies it substitutes a plurality of copies for a unique existence. And in permitting the reproduction to meet the beholder or listener in his own particular situation it reactivates the object reproduced” (Benjamin 365).
Benjamin takes another huge step in this piece by comparing a painter and a cameraman as it relates to truly being involved in the situation: “The painter maintains in his work a natural distance from reality, the cameraman penetrates deeply into its web” (Benjamin 373). This goes to show that the painter has created a whole painting because everything is being seen at once. On the other hand, a cameraman is only producing something that is being pieced together, seeing that the view is constantly changing.
Benjamin concludes with other unique arguments later in the summary about the relationships between Dadaism and film. His bold statement is that, “Dadaism attempted to create by pictoral – and literary – means the effects which the public today seeks in the film” (375). Basically, it appears that the Dadaists attempted to destroy their own aura through painting, thus showing that they could give two hoots less about the money value of their work.
Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction by Walter Benajmin
Sorry this is late- I caught that horrid plague that's going around and was out of commission for a bit. I've typed up a summery with some commentary but I was a bit lost as to the larger purpose of this piece so... yeah.... make what you can of it.
Art has always been reproducible to a point. A student can recreate a masters painting pretty accurately, but mechanical reproduction has pulled art into a new age. Reproduction presents us with two new opportunities; to alter what we see around us (for instance through the manipulation of a photograph) and to put art in surroundings where it wouldn’t have been other wise (The art of a cathedral can now be displayed smartly in your living room).
However reproduction detaches art from its sense of history, tradition, and authenticity. The reproduction is never as awe inspiring as the original. We are not moved by what Benjamin refers to as the “aura” of the piece. Art is valued in two main ways; its cult value (often it’s function within a spiritual context) and it’s exhibition value (it’s function when viewed by others). When art is removed from these values through reproduction, art becomes political. Then Benjamin loses me for a bit.
Benjamin proposes that with the introduction of the photograph we, for the first time, see the exhibition value of a piece out weight the importance of cult value. I don’t have a totally solid grasp on Benjamin’s use of the label “cult value” but I’m not sure I agree with this. People used to commission art for display all the time for no other reason than it made people aware of their wealth. Like how rich people today might not really give a crap about the save the panda foundation, but they look good by giving to it. Then he insists that mechanical reproduction/destroyed has removed the cult value of art. Again I call erroneous! People can have a spiritual experience with a machine made piece of art, people can connect with a reproduction, though it is perhaps less likely.
He goes on for a while about how different forms of reproduction (photography and film) devoid art of it’s aura; how it separates you from the humanity it originated from.
*Blank empty stare* So… I went through 95% of this piece thinking… this man has no point- and then suddenly OHMYGODSLAPINTHEFACE he starts discussing fascism and war. “[Mankinds] self alienation has reached such a degree that it can experiences its own destruction as an aesthetic pleasure of the first order.”
There is some sort of huge metaphor here dancing just at the tip of my comprehension. This piece HAS to be saying SOMETHING. I even cheated and called someone I know who works in theory (who informed me that the authors name is NOT pronounced like the english equivalent), but the moralistic jerk would only go so far as to tell me to read with a Marxist lens and be aware of when the piece was written (just before WWII).
After rereading the piece this is the best I can make out:
mass production voids art of it's aura and therefore robs people of their ability to reflect. Without this practice of reflection people become "self alienated" and so alienated from themselves begin to find war (the product of fascism at the time) beautiful. (If we cheapen art other cheap acts like war will become artistic.) So, in contrast, it should be the duty of communism to politicise art. Use the reflection of art to encourage people to contemplate politics.
My recommendation is to read the epilogue.
That's all I got. It's somewhat a shot in the dark