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Thursday, April 16, 2009
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
ch 21 Baudrillard: Simulacra and Simulations
When we make an image (a simulation) we at first use that image to represent something real. But after a time the line between which is real and which is a simulation becomes distorted. Sooner or later it is the simulation that we treat as the real object and by treating it as the real object it becomes real (the simulacrum).
The first section of this excerpt was so abstract to me that I couldn't entirely follow. It wasnt until I got to "divine irreference" that things started to make sense. Here Baudrillard introduces us to a bit of philosophy that flows throughout the piece. If we treat things as if they are real, are they not real? For instance a person who believes they have an illness to the point that they develop symptoms. If they have symptoms dont we consider that person to be sick? I thought about the movie Patch Adams. There's the crazy guy who sees killer squirrels everywhere. No one else sees them, they're not "real", but to him they *are* real so it is ridiculous to expect him to act as if he cant see them.
Then Baudrillard dives in. His comparisons include, the medical field, the military (which apparently got him into hella trouble in the 90's and early 2000's before his death), and religion. Take for example the crucifix. We create the crucifix to represent Christ. But after a time the line between the divinity in Christ and the divinity in that statue are blurred. (Consider the argument that the crucifix is idolatrous. Are people praying to Jesus or to the statue of Jesus?) Here Baudrillard makes a point that loses me for a bit. He suggests that by embracing the simulation (the crucifix) we are masking that the real object (Christ) does not in fact exist. Doesnt something original have to exist for there to be a simulation? It seems rather circular, but I could understand if we'd merely forgotten that a real existed. Baudrillards final point is that eventually we lose the original object and the simulation is embraced as and becomes the real.
He does elaborate on that middle point (the one that confused me). He says that we often embrace a simulation, a fantasy, in order to prove to ourselves that what came before is real. His example....Disney Land (that section is kind of a mind trip it's fun. If you didn't read it you should). We have this disgustingly idealogical fantasy land and we're there and it's oh-my-god-awesome and then we get into the parking lot and we're back in the real world. But the real world isnt real, it has become itself a simulation (This is where I decided Baudrillard was being philosophical to the extent of pointlessness.)
So a final example I got from a friend. The Cave Paintings in Lascaux France. We have this cave full of neolithic(?) art- it is real. But we dont want the paintings to be damaged from exposure so we close up the original and make a fake cave a little ways away. When a tourist goes inside of that recreation *it is the reality for them*. If that is the experience that everyone has, if all people just know the recreation of the cave, then it is that recreation that is the reality and the real cave (supposedly) ceases to have meaning.
Chapter 22: The Condition of Postmodernity
To begin the chapter, David Hardy starts discussing the changes in culture and political-economic practices since the early 1970’s. Hardy says:
“There is some kind of necessary relationship between the rise of postmodernist cultural forms, the emergence of more flexible modes of capital accumulation, and a new round of ‘time-space compression’ in the organization of capitalism. But these changes, when set against the basic rules of capitalistic accumulation, appear more as shifts in surface appearance rather than as signs of the emergence of some entirely new postcapitalist or even postindustrial society…”
With the word capital popping up so much, I couldn’t help but want to relate this to Marx and his economic viewpoint of traditional capital accumulation. Traditionally, investing in real goods, workers’ skills and living off less than you earn are all values to focus upon. The introduction is saying that though cultural forms, flexible capital accumulation modes and time space compression have a relationship, is more like the were shuffled to look like a new society rather than offering something new.
Post modernists focus on knowing the “multiple forms over otherness”, whether it be dealing with sex and/or gender, race/ethnicity, class, or location geographically.
Post modernism is also supposed to mimic societal practices in a sense. Hardy discusses the AT&T building and how it was made out of granite, despite being twice the price of glass, to be different. This goes back to class discussions we’ve had on class and power, and how perhaps AT&T were trying to show their worth.
At the top of page 237 Hardy discusses Postmodernism as a movement that tries to overcome modernism’s ills, though Hardy thinks bashing modernism is a bit overdone. By the middle of the page, Hardy is explaining how modernists had many great ideas and achievements from which many postmodernist ideas sprang. He goes on to say that perhaps capitalists are just as much if not wholly to blame for some of the downfall. It’s as if postmodernism has issues with modernism, so the postmodernism, in all its fractured, fragmented glory, takes the achievements of the modernists and owns them, and then changes the parts they don’t like to make it even more of their own.
From what I could gather from page 238, postmodernism really likes to take apart everything. Break down items piece by piece to find more depth and meaning. I did not understand the third full paragraph on this page when Hardy says that the authenticity of other voices occurs, but at the same time makes them shut off by universal sources of power. By the end of the page, Hardy loses me completely, discussing how postmodernists avoids “confronting the realities of political economy and the circumstances of global power….the postmodernist simply push it underground to function as a ‘now unconscious effectivity’”. Does this mean they are not open to discussing this or is it just not a concern to them? Or perhaps neither and there is an entirely different explanation.
Hardy uses the table on 240 to makes some points on Fordist modernity and flexible postmodernism. When Fordist modernity’s portion of the table is showing things such as fixed capital and stable and standardized ideas, it also has a focus of, as Hardy puts it “Becoming- of growth and transformation”. Likewise, flexible postmodernism looks at the fantasy intangible items, but also has a commitment to “Being and a place, a penchant for charismatic politics, concerns for ontology, and the stable institutions favored by neo-conservatism”.
The first full paragraph on 241 was hard for me to grasp, but what I think it is trying to say is that the table could be the full description of ideas and rationale within capitalism. It has both ends of the spectrum on many topics and there is a constant state of fluctuation between the modern and the postmodern ideas.
To finish up the chapter, Hardy asks where real change can come from. He mentions that our value systems and beliefs cannot be mechanically reproduced, and that critique can happen somewhere between “subjective and objective structures”.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
The Body and the Reproduction of Femininity
This article was extremely interesting as it presents the problems in today’s society past society and how it affects women. Bordo talks about three main afflictions to the female population: hysteria, agoraphobia, and anorexia nervosa. She goes into great detail about how many women just “don't feel good enough.” These diseases mainly afflict white upper and middle class women and although they are concentrated in different areas of time, its not to say that all three did not exist at the same time.
Hysteria was seen in the 19th century, however it was seen that a lady was idealized in terms of delicacy and dreaminess, sexual passivity, and a charmingly unbalanced and unpredictable emotionality. This can be seen in the way that they drifting and fogging of perception, the nervous tremors and faints, etc. These are all the symptoms of hysteria and yet these were the qualities that society valued in women.
The 1950s and early 1960s were the time period where Bordo
concentrates on agoraphobia. I believe the best way to explain this section is that “content in a world of bedroom and kitchen, sex, babies and home!” These women were taught to
stay home, that men would go out into the world and make the money while the women stayed at home all day cooking, cleaning and taking care of the kids.
Anorexia is more of a recent development and it generally is created because of the idea that women should be extremely slim, it is the norm these days. Society is teaching women to feed others and not themselves and these rules are constantly reinforced by commercials and such. “A number of feminist writers have interpreted anorexia as a species of unconscious feminists protests.” These women, however, don’t even know that they are creating a protest. I don’t think I agree with that statement.
These women are those who are obsessed with their practices, which create these afflictions, they are simply unable to create the necessary change in their life. Bordo mentions that there are two different types of bodies, the intelligible body and the useful body. “The intelligible body includes our scientific, philosophic and aesthetic representations of the body. These are our cultural conceptions of the body, norms of beauty, models of health, and so forth.” The useful body is basically the practical rules of society, the “ trained, shaped, obeys, responds.” These two bodies often support each other and mirror one another.
Power and slenderness are sometimes associated with one another. When women with an eating disorder speak about their illness they always say that it had something to do with the power they held over it. However, women with anorexia has nothing to do with strength and they are not in control.
Bordo ends her piece by explaining that our bodies are a site of struggle and that “we must work to keep our daily practices in the service of resistance to gender domination, not in the service of “docility” and gender normalization.” We must be aware of the contradictions of image and practice, rhetoric and reality and that we must “restore a focus on female praxis to its formerly central place in feminist politics.”
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Chapter 20 The Politics of Life Itself
There is so much information to digest in these few pages so I will give it my best to try to cover it. Nikolas Rose sums up the whole chapter as for once "our very biological life itself has entered the domain of decision and choice...We have entered the age of vital politics, of biological ethics and genetic responsibility." In the past it used to be survival of the fittest, then starting in the 18th century according to Rose, political authorities took on the task of managing life in the name of well being "of the population as a vital order and of each of its living subjects." Politics now address the process of human existence concerning the size and quality of population, human sexuality, reproduction, life and death.
Type rest of the post here Biopolitics came with the rise of life sciences and clinical medicine involving new techniques and modern technologies for the care of people through modern health services. Rose points out that in the 20th century state organized tactics played a part in biological politics concerning modification of reproductive decisions in the name of health of the population. There will probably be a whole lot more involvement with Biopolitics with women being able to presently have a litter of babies and the moral and ethical responsibility behind it. Rose says "however great the moral and political distance between the euthanasia, compulsory sterilization and genetic counseling, we cannot simply counter pose positive to negative policies, voluntary to compulsory measures, coercion and persuasion." I believe he is saying that just because there is a controversy issue on these things we cannot impose or do anything about it. (Not sure though). The first half of the century ws easy for biopolitics because health was understood as fit, and fit people were more disirable than unhealthy people. It was the Governments job to make sure its population stayed healthy and took measures through policies. Vaccinations come to my mind among other policies. Things have changed according to Rose - 'the political rationalities of our preset are no longer inspired by the dream of the takig in charge of the lives of each in the name of the destiny of all.' Now there is an array of identity politics and cultures to deal with. People are expected to take care of their own health. The state does not give up total control though. They are still regulating the sale of foodstuffs and making sure the water is pure and fluoride is added to water for public health. What the state is willing to give up is that individuals are to become active partners in their own health and well being. Now there are all kinds of self help groups, medicines as well as alternative medicines, public and private health insurances to help with all of it. Rose spends a lot of time on genetic health. We can change the old normal and have a new normal through genetics. We can do in vitro fertilization, stem cell reproduction and repair of almost any part of the body by playing with DNA. We can cut, suck, lift and fill any part of us to make us look better, and also shorten sickness, and prevent premature death. Psychiatry can manipulate and improve personalities using bio medicine. Rose says that with original biopolitical theses there was an implied separation between those in power and the subjects such as the "medical experimentation on prisoners and psychiatric inmates, euthanasia of those whose lives are not worth living, even such benign strategies as medical inspeciotn of schoolchildren". He says now there are new strategies of advertising and "marketing in the rapidly developing consumer market for health". This makes me think of the commercials that tell you to ask your doctor about a prescription medication being right for you. Biopolitics merges here to what Rose terms "ethopolitics", the politics of life itself. He says dicipline equals individualizes and normalizes, biopower equals collectivizes and socializes, and ethopolitics equals self-techniques - humans to make themselves better than they are, "disputes over the value to be accorded to life itself: quality of life, right to life, or the right to choose, euthanasia, gene therapy, human cloning and the like." There is a new responsibility and choices that come with the new bio techno age. rose says that "individuals seem to have acquired a kind of biological citizenship"...and that this argument would suggest that "biological ethics ascribes each human life equal worth. But our practices and techniques show us that the biological lives of individual human beings are recurrently subject to judgments of worth." I don't know why Terri Schiavo came to mind at this time. Maybe it was because while judgment was being made of her worth to live, she took forever to die. Rose ends with "For once our very biological life itself has entered the domain of decision and choice...We have entered the age of vital politics, of biological ethics and genetic responsibility." Personally, I am glad to see all of the change that is going on in the field of medicine and look forward to seeing how it progresses.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Chapter 19 The Reproduction of Femininity
Bordo starts off by saying that our bodies are “a medium of culture.” What I took from this, and from the rest of the passage, is that our bodies are used to teach culture and to transfer cultural beliefs. Our bodies are just another place for the messages of society to be represented. This reminded me of symbolic interaction. I thought of how young girls learn to act the way they do and if their biggest influence is their mother and how she represents her body a little girl will do the same thing, such as playing with mommy’s make up or putting on mommy’s high heels.
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The Body as a text of femininity
In this part of the chapter Bordo talks about disorders and the reason that they come about is to portray the story of the women. This part of the chapter made a lot of sense to me because Bordo talks about anorexia and how it’s the woman’s way of filling the role that society shows her to be her correct role. Women develop this disorder to stay slim because that’s what they feel that society has labeled them as needing to be. She gave another reason for anorexia which I had never considered before. She writes that anorexia is a woman’s way of showing the male characteristics that are liked. She writes “Self control, determination, cool, emotional discipline, mastery” and “The anorexic pursues these virtues with single minded, unswerving dedication.” Showing that women are trying to live up to the characteristics that make men have the power. Women using anorexia as a way to gain power? Women are using their bodies as a message or as a social text. The woman is saying “So culture wants us to be ultra slender well I’ve got that message covered, I’ll starve and show them that I can fill the role of a woman and have the discipline of a man.” Sadly it’s a way for the woman to feel like she has some power in a society that grants her very little.
Protest and Retreat in the same gesture
What I got from this section is that by obtaining the disorder a woman is also protesting what that disorder stands for. The best way I understood it was through the example of anorexia again. So a woman becomes anorexic to fit the socially shown role of the skinny woman. In one way she is trying to fit her role but in another the toll it takes on her body is a protest in itself. Bordo writes that the anorexic is not consciously protesting but the way that her body disintegrates is the message of protest. This is the role you want women to fill and yet it’s killing them. Bordo also explains fits of hysteria that would cause a woman to become silent. So the woman develops this hysteria in an effort to fit some norm and as her body “retreats” or becomes weak she loses her voice and becomes exactly what society wants and that’s a silent submissive woman. I was confused on why hysteria would be a protest? I don’t understand that example but the anorexia one made more sense. A woman tries to take control of her body but ends up destroying it making her weak. What does society want again, oh yeah weaker women.
Collusion, Resistance, and the body
The main message that Bordo sends here is that women use their bodies and the disorders as a way to gain power. Being anorexic is like a power trip. The woman feels like she has complete power and also feels safe from the dangers of the female world once she starts to take on the male body. Being anorexic is a way to enter the sphere of men, or at least that’s how they feel. However, it takes its toll and instead of the original feminist meaning behind the disorder where the woman was just looking for a way to gain power in a male dominated world, the disorder ultimately destroys the woman.
Textuality, praxis, and the body
“Body as a machine” I think that this is the best quote that summarizes this section. Bordo talks about women’s body praxis and the fact that woman have been shown what their body type should be throughout the decades but the means in which they achieve this body form is dangerous, for example corsets. Such attention to the body that was brought on by these praxis were what made femininity develop. I thought that this is what she meant by textuality, that the measures that were being taken were the message that was being sent and made feminist step up and take notice. However the problem with femininity and “having it all” is that it develops these disorders. I thought that this section was a little more confusing like she was explaining the cause and effect in circles. So the ideal woman in society is shown, “feminine praxis was required”, and then that is the textuality of the body (as in sending a message), which results in feminist attention, but then the feminist want it all which only reverts back to means of getting it all, the power, the perfect body, and respect. How do we get these things we’ll revert back to the praxis. A vicious circle, does that make sense? She then tries to wrap it up by saying that taking care of your body for your body’s health sake is good and that it should be done but often we take care of our body so that it can form it’s docile role instead of taking care of our body as a way to resist the gender domination that society puts on it.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Chapter 19: Queer Politics
The goal of homosexual politics has fought to move heterosexuality from its status as obviously natural, good, and superior and to change homosexuality from its status as abnormal to legitimate. Nineteenth-century scientific discrimination and classification spurred homosexuals to speak out against these incrementing sciences and fight for homosexuality to be seen as natural. The author complains that many homosexual advocators continue to use the terms and ideas that perpetuates discrimination against homosexuals, accepting the terms and ideas that there is a natural state of sexuality for example. They accept that there is a natural sexuality they just want to move homosexual into the category of natural sexuality.
He argues that the homosexual political movement is not however just reflexive, trying to fit into the accepted norms already present in society, but it is also creative and dynamic as a unique and valuable alternative view and perception of society. They are working not just to stop discrimination and homophobia making homosexuality acceptable but still a definite other but to find a real and valued place for homosexuality in our culture. He says that you are either homosexual or not, but there is a “queer culture” that is more intentionally developed. Homosexuals have to work on and develop into this culture.
He also states that the homosexual lifestyle for the culture to be accepting of homosexual lifestyles is more important than it is to pass laws which legalize homosexual behaviors and give rights to homosexual couples. This is not to down play the importance of legal rights of couples but to stress the importance that the importance of a culture which has accepting attitudes of the homosexual couples and their lifestyles is just as important, and possibly even more so to those living as homosexuals in society. Homosexual relationships require norms and social formulas just like heterosexual couples. The difference being that there are no larger societal norms governing homosexual relationship the way there are for heterosexual couples. The creation of these norms within homosexual couples are part of creating the homosexual culture.
He suggests that these new homosexual relationship forms should maximize pleasure and stay away from simply recreating the forms already available. The form which he discusses as an example is S/M. S/M is very much outside the “normal” and institutionalized forms of relationships. He says that in S/M there are roles but it is know to be a game and not actually the institutionalized and ridged power structures that are present in heterosexual relationships. In heterosexual relationships the power play is in the courting before sex and outside of sex, where as in S/M the power play is seen to be fluid, a game in which roles are interchangeable. He states that S/M allows sexual pleasure to take president over sexuality and other outside and institutionalized norms.
He says that S/M is a creative thing that has been developed, not deep desires that people are just now able to express. He say that S/M is part of a movement and realization that pleasure doesn’t have to come form the traditional forms of sexual pleasure that have been normalized by our society but that “we can produce pleasure with very odd things, very strange parts of our bodies, in very unusual situations and so on.”
He explains that queer culture can really explore pleasure because it is already outside the norms set but society on what is normal and good in sexual pleasure and thus can use this freedom to explore more what can be enjoyable.
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