In "Discipline and Punish" Foucault effectively gives a history of the penal system. He begins with a graphic description of the public execution of Damiens, an attempted regicide. his intention in this is to trace the disappearance of torture as a public spectacle and the transformation that occured in methods of punishment thereafter. In short, this transformation entails a move from the specific punishment of the body to the punishment of the mind and only partially the body with regard to restricted freedoms. Imprisonment thus became something psychological and the judgments which are imposed on the prisoners prior to their imprisonment is one concerning the nature of the criminal's very soul. The judge is no longer the soul proprieter of this judgment but is accompanied by a series of specialists who help in the final decision.
The panopticon is physically real (it was invented by Jeremy Bentham) but it is also an allegory for all of society. Foucalt believed that it benefits the ruling class to have prisons set up they way they are because it keeps a steady flow of dissidents going in and out of them, and creates generations of those prisoners who will hand their ideas down to others in their section of society and therefor never really pose an ideological threat to the ruling class. I don't think that Foucault believes that the modern methods of punishment and imprisonment are very effective, and actually I thinke believes that prisons only exacerbate crime by helping to create criminal milieus in which the culture inside the prison extends out into the families and friends of the criminals. A cycle.
Foucault is a great historian and he is a Nietzschean who believes that it is best to gravitate toward the primitive personage and gain pleasure in any way possible. He likes to trace the transformations and perceptions of marginal topics like madness and the reasons for institutions built for marginal figures. His theory of madness is especially interesting because he does not look upon it as a detrimental condition but rather as an enlightened condition. So he favors artist who have not been the spouses of history, like Artaud. I think the "new philosophers" like Guatarri and Deleuze embrace him because they can place his idea of schizophrenia into the fragmented, late capitalist systemm saying that everyone should just fall into spontaneity
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
GeekinthePink
"Why bother with a writer such as Derrida, who appears unable or unwilling to give a straight answer, to begin at the beginning, go on to the middle and end with the conclusion, explaining what he really means?" I disagree with this assertion of Derrida. I think he explains in detail what he really means. He is merely redefining the terms middle and end. He is deconstructing them and showing the "differance" between them. "Differance" is a combination of Sassure's and Macherey's ideas. He talks about the signifier and signified, and things outside of the text that give it meaning.
Sassure's ideas seem to match up with his. He goes into great detail about Sassure's "Course in General Linguistics" Derrida points out that words and signs cannot mean anything without other words. This goes directly with Sassure's idea that without knowing the dissimilar words for things, we could not know the meaning of any word. Sassure says "In language, there are only differences." Derrida takes this idea to a new level by applying it to all of writing and semiology. First, words are given meaning through differences, not through definition. Words exist through the existence of its opposites, and synonyms and words that mean slightly different things.
"For us, differance remains a metaphysical name; and all the names that it receives from our language are still, so far as they are names, metaphysical." Unlike Sassure, Derrida feels meaning, or "differance" comes not from words, but from more actual things--the unnamable, that which is not simply provisional. "What is unnamable is the play that brings about the nominal effects, the relatively unitary or atomic structures we call names, or chains of substitutions for names." In other words, our being puts this meaning into names and through this only are names given. But, since names are through being, they cannot be physical or named, but rather metaphysical and unnamed. Derrida uses Sassure's idea but puts the being into language. Sassure gives too much meaning to words, in Derrida's opinion, the question is in "...the marriage between speech and Being in the unique word, in the finally proper name."
Sassure's ideas seem to match up with his. He goes into great detail about Sassure's "Course in General Linguistics" Derrida points out that words and signs cannot mean anything without other words. This goes directly with Sassure's idea that without knowing the dissimilar words for things, we could not know the meaning of any word. Sassure says "In language, there are only differences." Derrida takes this idea to a new level by applying it to all of writing and semiology. First, words are given meaning through differences, not through definition. Words exist through the existence of its opposites, and synonyms and words that mean slightly different things.
"For us, differance remains a metaphysical name; and all the names that it receives from our language are still, so far as they are names, metaphysical." Unlike Sassure, Derrida feels meaning, or "differance" comes not from words, but from more actual things--the unnamable, that which is not simply provisional. "What is unnamable is the play that brings about the nominal effects, the relatively unitary or atomic structures we call names, or chains of substitutions for names." In other words, our being puts this meaning into names and through this only are names given. But, since names are through being, they cannot be physical or named, but rather metaphysical and unnamed. Derrida uses Sassure's idea but puts the being into language. Sassure gives too much meaning to words, in Derrida's opinion, the question is in "...the marriage between speech and Being in the unique word, in the finally proper name."
GeekinthePink
“…every position on postmodernism in culture . . . [is] an implicitly or explicitly political stance on the nature of multinational capitalism today.” The issue of the post modern and position of capitalism is like the issue of terrorism in the media. If the media did not exist in the second age media Poster and Baudrillard describe, would America be suffering from terrorism in the same degree as we have been in the past 5 years? The reason, you see, for postmodern culture has to be the invent of capitalism. Accordingly, a position on postmodernity is a stance of mulitinational capitalism. To me, it's hard to tell how some of these theorists feel about capitalism. They speak of the breakdown of it, and they show the derogatory effects, but hard to tell if they would change it if they could. Except for Marx and Benjamin. I should think that was quite obvious.
Looking at the slides in class, the idea kind of struck me that Jameson would be on team Habermas were he to have to make a choice between Habermas or Lyotard. Habermas blames society (even though he does not agree it is a postmodern society but modernity that is an incomplete project) and calls it a hedonistic culture, desiring a revival via neoconservatism. With the slides, it is easy to see the desensitized society and what is deemed inappropriate. I would imagine Habermas nodding his head up and down to this. And then, we see him state one of Habermas' favorite phrases (in a more verbose way of course): "frantic economic urgency of producing fresh waves of ever more novel-seeming goods” In other words, we see the disease of the cult of the new: we always need the newer solutions, the better, the different. And through this viewpoint, sometimes we get real art and sometimes we get a toilet seat. Unfortunately, when we are in the "cult of the new mentality," we have to go with what the ruling class says is the new edge. Hopefully, though, that new edge doesn't reveal too much of the underbelly of culture. If it were to get to this point, we would find out the true meat behind the driver seat of culture--the ugliness of it, the "blood, torture, death, & horror"--which I think just translates to the superficiality of it; that actually, nothing of significance subsists behind it, just the inherent need for money and perversion to get it.
Looking at the slides in class, the idea kind of struck me that Jameson would be on team Habermas were he to have to make a choice between Habermas or Lyotard. Habermas blames society (even though he does not agree it is a postmodern society but modernity that is an incomplete project) and calls it a hedonistic culture, desiring a revival via neoconservatism. With the slides, it is easy to see the desensitized society and what is deemed inappropriate. I would imagine Habermas nodding his head up and down to this. And then, we see him state one of Habermas' favorite phrases (in a more verbose way of course): "frantic economic urgency of producing fresh waves of ever more novel-seeming goods” In other words, we see the disease of the cult of the new: we always need the newer solutions, the better, the different. And through this viewpoint, sometimes we get real art and sometimes we get a toilet seat. Unfortunately, when we are in the "cult of the new mentality," we have to go with what the ruling class says is the new edge. Hopefully, though, that new edge doesn't reveal too much of the underbelly of culture. If it were to get to this point, we would find out the true meat behind the driver seat of culture--the ugliness of it, the "blood, torture, death, & horror"--which I think just translates to the superficiality of it; that actually, nothing of significance subsists behind it, just the inherent need for money and perversion to get it.
Anamnesis_post class adorno, horkie, jameson
In class I realized that Horkheimer and Adorno are giving a sort of manifesto like Benjamin's but theirs is much more broad in its focus, reaching into companies, government, the subject, Kant, film, literature, propaganda etc. All of it is conveniently found under the heading "culture industry," a term which gives a dubious outlook to the nature of modern culture. At points they are almost exactly like Benjamin, though, especially in their criticism of film, where they say "Far more strongly than the theatre of illusion, film denies its audience any dimension in which they might roam freely in imagination--contained by the film's framework but unsupervised by its precise actualities. It relates back to Benjamines idea that the original (in this case nature) has to be there, and that its meaning is diluted by film as a medium. the moviegoer "percieves the street outside as a continuation of the film he has just left." But like I said, Horkheimer and Adorno are more broad; for them "the whole world is passed through the filter of the culture industry." Even when consumers are not consuming, they are always being geared toward the next purchase. Kant's active contribution is negated by the culture industry and the schematism which once belonged to the brain and which allowed the subject to integrate great amounts of information (multiplicity) into everyday experience is inverted. Now, production prefigures the multiplicity for the subject and there is as a result no imaginative work to be done on behalf of him/her. A good postmodern example of this would be cell phones with their myriad functions, colors, services, and accessories. It looks as though the possibilites with cell phones are endless, but in reality there are only a limited number of choices. Erroniuously, the consumer takes these choices to be a kind a freedom and so the cell phone becomes as it were a symbol of imagination and adventure with texting, bluetoothing, gaming, tv watching, radio listening, image sharing, skins, holsters, chains, links ad nauseum--a whole world belonging to the cell phone, and yet it is not the world we imagine but that which companies imagine for us.
At one point, patronage supplied the arts with money, so artists were largely outside market influences, after the eighteenth century that changed, though, and works of art were bound up with economy in a way that had not happened before. There starts the the domino effect of art being diluted by reproduction and eventually by capitalism itself. Adnorno uses the example of Beethoven, who recognized a Walter Scoot novel as trash "this man writes for money" and yet Beethoven was apparently very savvy in getting his late string quartets out to the public. The difference, which Adnorno points out, between those works and the works of his time, is that the string quartets were works "representing the extreme repudiation of the market" and the works of 1944 that were taken seriously were those produced by artists who "succumb to ideology" and thus make art into that which is accepted by its sheer popularity rather than it's technical or imaginative merit. This is purposeless art, or even worse "purposiveness without purpose" or a ind of feigning of purpose. Jameson discusses this in another light with "Diamond Dust Shoes," a work which unlike the work before it consciously takes into account the market and makes it into its very aesthetic. Warhol understood fundamentally that today's works of art are "suitably packaged like political slogans and pressed on a reluctant public at reduced prices by the culture industry," so he established THE FACTORY to produce and reproduce his paintings. He had others do his silkscreens for him and often times was not even to be found on the premises. Is it not impossible today to speak with the leader owners of those products which we consume most often? One who eats 200 Macdonalds cheeseburgers in a year would never be able to speak to the owner of macdonalds. The documentary "Supersize Me" aptly points this out.
Overall I think Horkie and Adnorno have an abrasive and chastising tone. They are obviously angry with the conditions of society and highly skeptical of any new thing which might come onto the radar of culture. Ideology earns an especially dubious place within culture. It is troubling that they, in 1944, can talk about the "city center" with such disdain and to think about the precarious "town centers" that have now sprouted up in every major and minor city. These town centers would undoubtedly be th subject of a torrent of criticisms by this duo. I'm sure part of the premise might ask the question "what center?"
At one point, patronage supplied the arts with money, so artists were largely outside market influences, after the eighteenth century that changed, though, and works of art were bound up with economy in a way that had not happened before. There starts the the domino effect of art being diluted by reproduction and eventually by capitalism itself. Adnorno uses the example of Beethoven, who recognized a Walter Scoot novel as trash "this man writes for money" and yet Beethoven was apparently very savvy in getting his late string quartets out to the public. The difference, which Adnorno points out, between those works and the works of his time, is that the string quartets were works "representing the extreme repudiation of the market" and the works of 1944 that were taken seriously were those produced by artists who "succumb to ideology" and thus make art into that which is accepted by its sheer popularity rather than it's technical or imaginative merit. This is purposeless art, or even worse "purposiveness without purpose" or a ind of feigning of purpose. Jameson discusses this in another light with "Diamond Dust Shoes," a work which unlike the work before it consciously takes into account the market and makes it into its very aesthetic. Warhol understood fundamentally that today's works of art are "suitably packaged like political slogans and pressed on a reluctant public at reduced prices by the culture industry," so he established THE FACTORY to produce and reproduce his paintings. He had others do his silkscreens for him and often times was not even to be found on the premises. Is it not impossible today to speak with the leader owners of those products which we consume most often? One who eats 200 Macdonalds cheeseburgers in a year would never be able to speak to the owner of macdonalds. The documentary "Supersize Me" aptly points this out.
Overall I think Horkie and Adnorno have an abrasive and chastising tone. They are obviously angry with the conditions of society and highly skeptical of any new thing which might come onto the radar of culture. Ideology earns an especially dubious place within culture. It is troubling that they, in 1944, can talk about the "city center" with such disdain and to think about the precarious "town centers" that have now sprouted up in every major and minor city. These town centers would undoubtedly be th subject of a torrent of criticisms by this duo. I'm sure part of the premise might ask the question "what center?"
Eddie, Foucault
Foucault speaks of the Panopticom and its unseen supervisor watching over the many isolated cells – the miniature theatres – with no end to their display. He describes it as a ferocious vision of enslavement and a nightmare of extreme subjugation. Sad to say, Foucault’s vision of horror has become our bizarre reality today.
Is it possible that the kind of prison cell described by Foucault actually exist? One where prisoners are without doubt in their monitoring, yet are completely unaware of when or in what fashion they are being watched? Not only does such a sadistic place of entrapment exist today, imagine the reaction of Foucault if he were to learn that people are increasingly eager to subjugate themselves into it. We call the cells “blogs.”
At the risk of sounding zealously hostile against the modern internet, I believe that blogs are voluntary enslavement. It makes abut as much sense as delivering yourself to the doors of the prison in question. It is surrendering yourself to a perverse public exhibit where any and all of the faceless mass may come and view whatever you have to show. The writer never knows when they visit or how many eyes are present at any given moment. The best guess here is to simply assume that someone is watching through the shadows.
That assumption of someone always watching then changes the prisoner: we expect a fair bit of casual lying from the author of any personal blog. The person on display is not always the pure and honest representation of him or herself simply because he or she is aware of the audience. The alerted writer would make effort to lines him or herself with the expectations and tastes of the viewers. In the same sense, a prisoner of the Panopticon would also refuse to be a natural and pure subject of observation. Whether the prisoners ever see the supervisor or not is irrelevant since they know such a character exists, so the action is simply to refrain from activities that may draw attention and keep actions as unassuming as possible. If a prisoner does not know when to pretend and when not to, he or she will likely pretend every waking moment just in case. We know from the wisdom of sociologists that the mere knowledge of an observer or a monitor is enough to alter the behavior of the subject, so a component that should be added and considered in Foucault’s theory is the prisoner manipulation of the supervisor. What constitutes the prisoners’ choices and what they masquerade themselves as are of great interest, but is beyond the scope of this discussion.
What is relevant, I would add, is that blogs add a new form of isolation to the mix. The supervisors here are free to step in, comment and contribute to the performance. That is , the supervisors are free to step in and engage with the prisoner as much or as little as they like. Should they want to, they could disappear back into the anonymous shadows and severing further engagement. The blog writer’s responses would then be like casting stones into the darkness and praying for the sound of its landing. As an author and writer, bloggers are isolated in their own islands, but with people free to enter. The catch is that the blogger is completely stripped of control in the length and intimacy of each engagement from the unseen supervisors – or unseen editors.
Is it possible that the kind of prison cell described by Foucault actually exist? One where prisoners are without doubt in their monitoring, yet are completely unaware of when or in what fashion they are being watched? Not only does such a sadistic place of entrapment exist today, imagine the reaction of Foucault if he were to learn that people are increasingly eager to subjugate themselves into it. We call the cells “blogs.”
At the risk of sounding zealously hostile against the modern internet, I believe that blogs are voluntary enslavement. It makes abut as much sense as delivering yourself to the doors of the prison in question. It is surrendering yourself to a perverse public exhibit where any and all of the faceless mass may come and view whatever you have to show. The writer never knows when they visit or how many eyes are present at any given moment. The best guess here is to simply assume that someone is watching through the shadows.
That assumption of someone always watching then changes the prisoner: we expect a fair bit of casual lying from the author of any personal blog. The person on display is not always the pure and honest representation of him or herself simply because he or she is aware of the audience. The alerted writer would make effort to lines him or herself with the expectations and tastes of the viewers. In the same sense, a prisoner of the Panopticon would also refuse to be a natural and pure subject of observation. Whether the prisoners ever see the supervisor or not is irrelevant since they know such a character exists, so the action is simply to refrain from activities that may draw attention and keep actions as unassuming as possible. If a prisoner does not know when to pretend and when not to, he or she will likely pretend every waking moment just in case. We know from the wisdom of sociologists that the mere knowledge of an observer or a monitor is enough to alter the behavior of the subject, so a component that should be added and considered in Foucault’s theory is the prisoner manipulation of the supervisor. What constitutes the prisoners’ choices and what they masquerade themselves as are of great interest, but is beyond the scope of this discussion.
What is relevant, I would add, is that blogs add a new form of isolation to the mix. The supervisors here are free to step in, comment and contribute to the performance. That is , the supervisors are free to step in and engage with the prisoner as much or as little as they like. Should they want to, they could disappear back into the anonymous shadows and severing further engagement. The blog writer’s responses would then be like casting stones into the darkness and praying for the sound of its landing. As an author and writer, bloggers are isolated in their own islands, but with people free to enter. The catch is that the blogger is completely stripped of control in the length and intimacy of each engagement from the unseen supervisors – or unseen editors.
Monday, November 5, 2007
Mike of Modernity (or post?)
To be entertained means to be in agreement." {Horkheimer and Adorno)
With the wealth of observations and Nostradamus-like predictions about the acceleration of postmodern culture by these two, this phrase seemed particularly interesting. It imparts some of the lessons of Saussure and the "unspoken contract" of language, The study of textual timesis by Barthes, the study of the cultural effects of simulation echoed by Baudrillard and Eco, and the Althusserian principles of ideology. Entertainment can be a powerful conduit to pass through whatever one chooses. As success is measured in mass, the most "successful" works of entertainment reach a large number of people. A blockbuster film can have a huge impact on its audience. Fashion and buying trends swing by the fulcrum of the next big marketing blitz. When we watch a film and "agree" that we are entertained, what is it exactly we agree on? Just enough explosions, laughs and sexual content to satisfy our thirst for it, or do we seek something more "sublime"? I enjoy the bubblegum fare like "Transformers" which taps into an icon of my childhood. I'm equally moved by films that entertain and provoke like "American Beauty". How can one discern the "quality" of one over another, as both are designed for a specific purpose. Ultimately, both provide us with the obligatory intrigue, drama and sexual imagery. But while the childhhod toy inspired "Transformers" provides a triumph for the audience to be a part of, American Beauty leaves its audience shocked and introspective. It would be difficult to accomplish the saem ends in on film.
With the wealth of observations and Nostradamus-like predictions about the acceleration of postmodern culture by these two, this phrase seemed particularly interesting. It imparts some of the lessons of Saussure and the "unspoken contract" of language, The study of textual timesis by Barthes, the study of the cultural effects of simulation echoed by Baudrillard and Eco, and the Althusserian principles of ideology. Entertainment can be a powerful conduit to pass through whatever one chooses. As success is measured in mass, the most "successful" works of entertainment reach a large number of people. A blockbuster film can have a huge impact on its audience. Fashion and buying trends swing by the fulcrum of the next big marketing blitz. When we watch a film and "agree" that we are entertained, what is it exactly we agree on? Just enough explosions, laughs and sexual content to satisfy our thirst for it, or do we seek something more "sublime"? I enjoy the bubblegum fare like "Transformers" which taps into an icon of my childhood. I'm equally moved by films that entertain and provoke like "American Beauty". How can one discern the "quality" of one over another, as both are designed for a specific purpose. Ultimately, both provide us with the obligatory intrigue, drama and sexual imagery. But while the childhhod toy inspired "Transformers" provides a triumph for the audience to be a part of, American Beauty leaves its audience shocked and introspective. It would be difficult to accomplish the saem ends in on film.
Post-Class, Eric 11/5
the origin of eschatology probably ties in with in our inner struggle with the fact that we will die. We want a purpose to our life and most eschatological stories clearly tell us what the purpose of our existence is, in the terms of the meta-narrative that they belong to.
Several narratives throughout history including the modern favorites of Islam and Christianity postulate that at the end of days some kind of battle will take place that will decide the fate of the universe or something like that. Interestingly, they both seem to feel that at this point jesus will return and defeat the anti-christ. BOTH OF THEM. Other subscribers to the school of massive crazy battle at the end of time include the norsemen: who beleived that dying gloriously in battle in life would grant you an oppurtunity to fight for the aesir while piss-drunk.
Those of a Hebraic nature do not think that a war will be the end of the world they think that instead the coming of a messiah will bring and age of peace where the dead may or may not rise.
and then some crazy people think this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity
all I have to say is lol.
Several narratives throughout history including the modern favorites of Islam and Christianity postulate that at the end of days some kind of battle will take place that will decide the fate of the universe or something like that. Interestingly, they both seem to feel that at this point jesus will return and defeat the anti-christ. BOTH OF THEM. Other subscribers to the school of massive crazy battle at the end of time include the norsemen: who beleived that dying gloriously in battle in life would grant you an oppurtunity to fight for the aesir while piss-drunk.
Those of a Hebraic nature do not think that a war will be the end of the world they think that instead the coming of a messiah will bring and age of peace where the dead may or may not rise.
and then some crazy people think this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity
all I have to say is lol.
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