Race Theory

Decolonization

Decolonization is a violent process, but colonization is most violent. Colonizing is a regime of violence against and in a nation of people by a small group deployed to occupy, appropriate, and terrorize on behalf of another nation.

Frantz Fanon highlights the violence involved in breaking with colonialism both at the physical, geographic level as well as the cultural and theoretical level by pointing to the unrestrained violence against those who were colonized. That same lack of restraint by which they were colonized must be used to decolonize-- "to  smash every obstacle encountered" even to have a "murderous and decisive confrontation" (365). The colonized must be willing to resort to "every means" by which the order of society is constructed to destroy it.

The colonized are up against "a world divided in two" (366). First by physical/geographical barriers "the borders" set by "barracks and police stations"; second by controlling bodily mobility through agents of the colonies (both "spokesperson for the colonizer" and surveillance) such as police officers and soldiers; and third through compulsory education both moral and academic to smother them in "a mood of submission and inhibition" (366).

--"As soon as they are born it is obvious to them that their cramped world, riddled with taboos, can only be challenged by out-and-out violence" (Fanon in ST 366).

The movie Sarafina demonstrates the struggle of students living in a colonized apartheid South Africa who use the very classroom intended to enforce their submission for a site of resistance. They are emboldened by their instructor's alignment with their resistance.--

Through these means of colonization Fanon plainly states, "It is the colonist who fabricated and continues to fabricate the colonized subject" (365). The colonized are known and know themselves in contrast to the colonizer.  Rationalizing the subjugation of colonized people necessitates an ideology of "difference" (512, 522). Fanon points out that although black Americans' "existential problems differed from those faced by the Africans" that the "common denominator" was "that they all defined themselves in relation to whites" (366). The attempt to demystify the fabrication-- identifying it as an unnatural, artificial rhetorical/discursive project--is through the violent struggle of identity.

Identity and Race Theory

When considering race theory, one must consider the concept of identity. How is identity shaped? What does it mean to struggle for identity individually and communally against a backdrop of oppression that seeks to—and often succeeds at—questioning your very humanity.  Storey, West and others point to the idea that White identity was formed as an oppositional binary to “others.” White became an identity only when Europeans encountered non-white people. When non-white peoples were “discovered”, it became the trend to seek to devalue them based on concepts of “reason.” “The urge toward the systematization of all human knowledge (by which we characterize the Enlightenment) led directly to the relegation of black people to a lower place in the great chain of being…” (523).

Phyllis Wheatley

Henry Louis Gates outlines the way that writing—considered by Enlightenment minds to be “the medium of reason’s expression” (523-524)—functioned as a tool to dehumanize as well as a site of contestation and human identity formation for enslaved Africans in America during the 18^th century. Those who sought to devalue African Americans’ humanity suggested that the illiteracy of enslaved African was proof of their sub-human status. Gates does not ignore the irony of the fact that many enslaved Africans were illiterate only because it was illegal for them to be taught to read or write.  Gates argues that the literature that was produced by enslaved Africans such as Phyllis Wheatley “indicted the received order of Western culture, of which slavery was to them the most salient sign” (526). The activity of the African American early literary personalities did not have the full desired effect, however. “We accepted a false premise by assuming that racism would be destroyed once white racists became convinced that we were human” (526). Instead, black literature became another way of differentiating the “race” from the norms of Western literature. Black people had achieved human identity, but that did not, as they had hoped, produce freedom or equality.

Writing is not the only way in which people of color have sought to carve out identity. West argues that black people in the West have struggled for identity amidst a “modern Black diaspora problematic of invisibility and namelessness” (517). This falls in line with many theorists as Black people are often forced to forge identities in environments where their humanity is treated as an absence.  The site of struggle for Black identity for West resides in “Black efforts to hold self-doubt, self-contempt and self-hatred at bay” (518). West cites strategies that have been used historically to attempt to create a Black identity that could combat the negative representations of Blacks created by Western pseudo-science and politics as “moralistic in content and communal in character” (518). The content of this strategy had to do with convincing the world that Blacks were morally similar to Whites. The communal character of the strategy lay in the monolithic characterization of Blackness that was presented to the world. ‘We are just like you and we are all alike in our quality of character’ is the nature of this attempt to forge a positive identity. For some, this strategy was the weakness of the civil rights movement. What might happen if those who were invested in this assimilationist strategy were forced to encounter today's Black culture? Here's ONE idea (ok I jut really think it's funny but QUITE relevant.)

 

(I apologize in advance if this offends)

West challenges the validity of these strategies based on the fact that the strategies were assimilationist in nature and had a homogenizing influence on Black identity. These strategies sought acceptance by denying difference. West argues that true and powerful identity for Black people can only be achieved if we embrace difference and investigate the places of difference in culture by demystification of power relations and suggestions for transformative praxis that highlight human agency.

Gloria Anzaldua writes of her identity as a lesbian of color with a background of Indian/Spanish (Mexican) descent. She speaks of the horrors of American appropriation of the land of her people and the dangers of living in the borderlands as integral to the shaping of her identity. Anzaldua acknowledges that, “unlike Chicanas and other women of color who grew up white or who have only recently returned to their native cultural roots, I was totally immersed in mine” (558). Anzaldua is careful to neither reject her heritage simply because it has, on occasion, rejected her as a woman and a lesbian nor glorify it to the extent that she does not address the problems in it. As a matter of fact, she sees her critique as part of her culture’s traditions. She writes, “My Chicana identity is grounded in the Indian woman’s history of resistance. The Aztec female rites of mourning were rites of defiance protesting the cultural changes which disrupted the equality and balance between female and male” (557-558). Anzaldua believes that to live well in the space of her identity requires honoring her culture with integrity while critiquing it with that same integrity. She cites her full immersion in her culture and her exposure to influences beyond her culture as the space where her identity exists and finds its uniqueness.

The Matrix of Domination and Black Feminist Thought

Gloria Anzaldua’s position as an outside insider in her community points to another concern that has become prevalent in race theory (as well as feminist theory) in recent years. This concept is the Matrix of Domination. Because Anzaldua is a woman of color and a lesbian, is vulnerable to racism, sexism and heterosexism. Because she comes from people who have been historically exploited and whose citizenship and humanity are constantly questioned and contested, she is vulnerable to classism. These oppressions cannot and should not be considered apart from one another according to those who study the matrix of domination. They should, instead be considered different axes in a matrix. The axes intersect one another at the levels of personal experience, community engagement and social institutions. The forces acting in the matrix, instead of a series of separate oppressions, are a set of “interlocking oppressions” (541) where, “each system needs the others in order to function” (542).

For Patricia Hill Collins, the best articulation of the matrix of domination as experienced by Black women is the intersection between race, class and gender. This is not to say that Black women do not experience domination on other axes nor is it to say that Black women are the only people who experience the matrix along these three axes. These three axes are just the most likely to be experienced by all women of color to varying degrees. The matrix of domination affects everyone.  No one escapes it and there are “few pure victims or oppressors” (546). Everyone can identify a space in which they are oppressed and some space in which they might be privileged.

Besides varying degrees and the multiplicity of axes upon which domination can operate, Collins also points to different levels of domination, “the level of personal biography; the group or community level of the cultural context created by race, class and gender; and the systemic level of social institutions” (545). The individual biography helps the woman to make meaning. That meaning is validated, invalidated or adjusted within the community context and helps the woman navigate institutions. The importance of the individual biography and the cultural context for meaning-making in Black Feminist Thought is the reason why, unlike other feminisms requires, “Living as an African American woman,” is a “necessary prerequisite for producing Black feminist thought” (547).

If only Black women can participate in Black feminist thought, how can they challenge the matrix of domination on any real level? Collins argues that the space for challenging the matrix consists in the understanding that all knowledge is situated, subjugated and partial. If we remain conscious of these conditions of knowledge, then we become capable of having, “dialogue with empathy,” which includes centering each voice as it speaks in the larger dialogue while acknowledging the partial nature of all standpoints (551). All voices can be heard and all subjects understand each other as speaking from separate standpoints in the same discourse.

Questions for Reflection:

1) Do you see yourself in your current situation as oppressed within the matrix of domination? Do you see yourself as privileged? Explain how for each.

2) If you were asked to define your primary identity in ten words or less, how would you do it. Would race be a factor? Would the races of others who are different from you be a factor? How so?

3) Has decolonization thoroughly taken place? Is the removal of physical barriers and the scientific acknowledgement that "Human biology does not divide people into different 'races'" end colonization (167)?

4) According to Fanon, West, and Gates, what is the role of the intellectual or the teacher in the struggle against "essentialist rhetorics" deployed against people of color  (519)?

Feminism and Queer Theory

Gender and Sexuality

            ‘Finding a voice,’ a metaphor for self-transformation is what African- American feminist theorist, bell hooks, describes as the oppressed woman speaking out and writing for the first time. She says speaking allows oneself to transform from an object to that of a subject and “only as subjects can we speak” (p.175).

 

     Feminism is a way for the oppressed to ‘find their voice’. It is feminism that has placed gender on the academic agenda (Storey, 135). It is not a monolith, but diverse. Storey states that there are four different feminisms: radical, Marxist, liberal, and dual-systems theory. They are all diverse in terms of the conclusion that they each draw from their feminism issues. Radical feminism is seen as the model for all other kinds of oppression. The argument is that women’s oppression stem from the patriarchal system. It is seen as the root of their problems. There is the belief that men must change before equality between men and women is achieved. Marxist feminist analysis ultimate source of oppression is capitalism.

            The domination of women by men is seen as a consequence of capital’s domination over labour (p.135). There is economic inequality between women and men. Liberal feminism is different form radical and Marxist feminism because it does not present a system that decides the oppression of women. It, on the other hand, tends to see the problem in terms of male prejudice against women, embodied in law or expressed in the exclusion of women from particular areas of life (p.175). It takes on an individualized approach, stressing individual empowerment and it is characterized by the belief that women have the ability to attain equality. The women have to prove themselves as equal to men and the only way to accomplish this is for laws to change that are disadvantageous to them. Finally, the dual-systems theory represents the coming together of Marxist and radical feminist analysis in the belief that women’s oppression is the result of a complex articulation of both patriarchy and capitalism (p.175). 

 

Women at the Cinema

            LauraMulvey’s account of the ‘male gaze’ has had an enormous influence; however, it has not been met without criticism. Some feminist doubted the ‘universal validity’ of her account of the ‘male gaze’ and whether it was always the male doing the ‘gazing’ or could there be other ways of seeing, particularly by the female.

 

Lorraine Gamman and Margaret Marshment advocate a cultural politics of intervention: ‘we can’t afford to dismiss the popular by always positioning ourselves outside of it’ (p. 137). They go on to say that the entertainment and information that we in society receive is from popular culture. It is here that women (and men) are offered the culture’s dominant definitions of themselves. It would therefore seem crucial to explore the possibilities and pitfalls of intervention in popular forms in order to find ways of making feminist meanings a part of our pleasures (p.137).

            Jackie Stacey conducted her own analysis based on responses she’d received from women that were mostly working class and over the age of 60. These women were avid movie-goers in the 1940s and 1950s. Escapism, identification and consumption, were three discourses that the analysis generated responses for and through her analysis it was revealed that the main reason the women went to the cinema was for escapism. The women wanted a time-out from the world around them. It was more than just the Hollywood glamour. The physical space of the cinema provided a transitional space between everyday life outside of the cinema and the fantasy world of the Hollywood film about to be shown (p.138). 

      Here they are able to forget their problems for a short amount of time. Stacey’s second analysis is identification, ‘by which women collude and become implicit in their own oppression’ (p.139). However, she claim that identification can be shown to work quite differently by shifting the focus from the female spectator constructed within the film text to the actual female in the audience in the cinema (p.139). There is this fantasy and dream-like state that the female spectator is in while in the cinema. Consumption, she insists is ‘a site of negotiated meanings, of resistance and appropriation as well as of subjection and exploitation’ (p.139).  

The Problem That Has No Name

            Betty Friedan acknowledges a problem that women had placed on their minds for many years and was afraid to ask—“Is this all?” Women were ‘unhappy’ and ‘dissatisfied’ with their lives as housewives and wondered if it was more to life than a housewife’s daily work routine. Experts would write columns and books ‘telling women their role was to seek fulfillment as wives and mothers’ (Lemert, p.362). But these were educated women who had a longing to do something else with their lives bedsides being a housewife and mother. Friedan blames the media (the so-called experts) for this idealized image of the beautiful stay-at-home wife and mother. Experts would tell the women ‘how to catch a man and keep him’, bear children and put the needs of others before her own. According to Friedan, this mystique of feminine fulfillment became the cherished and self-perpetuated core of contemporary American culture (p.363).            

      Many women mirrored their lives in the image of an American suburban housewife kissing and sending her husband off to work, children off to school and cleaning house. This was an ideal image for them. They all wanted to marry, have children and live in a nice home in the suburbs. But Friedan believed that women were given a false perception of what true womanhood was. In the 1950s and 1960s, if a woman felt there was something wrong with her, she attributed it to her marriage or herself.

            She was reluctant and ashamed to admit her dissatisfaction and it was hard to understand and discuss with others. For some, they wouldn’t admit to even having a problem at all. But Friedan concluded that ‘the problem that has no name’ stirring in the minds of so many American women today is not a matter of loss of femininity or too much education, or the demands of domesticity. It is far more important and can no longer be ignored. A woman can no longer ignore the voice within that says: “I want something more than my husband and my children and my home (p.364).

 

Masculinity 

    As it has been pointed out there are numerous works centered on feminism and feminist theory. Shifting from femininity the text briefly examines masculinity and Queer theory (specifically focusing on the work of Judith Butler). Feminism has been the lens through which researchers have examined countless topics.  Mens studies, at least in my opinion, seems to be something that is a newer approach (even though feminism researchers have problems with this approach). However, researchers have raised concern because according to Schwenger, “ for men to think about masculinity is to become less masculine” (CTPC, 159).

            Much like Queer theory, masculinity researchers believe that masculinity, like gender and sexual identity, is a cultural construct- it is not ‘natural’ and often a heterosexual myth. “Dominant masculinity” or what Nixon’s called the “new man masculinity” is often projected onto society through mass media-different types of advertising, clothing stores and magazines (CTPC, 159). With this being said it seems that there is a bright future for those who are interested in deconstructing masculinity in similar ways that femininity has been examined.

Is this the 'new man'?

Queer Theory

     Queer theory is a field of study that examines and critiques the “relationship between lesbians, gay men and the culture which surround and (for the large part) continues to seek to exclude [them]” (CTPC, 160). As laid out in the text Queer theory seeks to “attack” what modern society has constructed and preached, natural gender and heterosexuality. Throughout Queer research you will find that many of the scholars focus on performance.

     

      Judith Butler is probably one of the most influential and well-known scholars in this field. de Beauvoir believed that “one is not born a woman, but, rather, becomes one’ (p.160), this statement seems foundational for Butler’s argument that sex and gender are culturally and politically constructed identities that we learn to perform. For Butler gender is not any more natural than femininity and masculinity. In fact, they are “cultural performance in which naturalness is constituted through discursively constrained performative acts” (p.161).

            This idea of performativity, for Butler, comes from J.L. Austin’s work which views language in two ways: constative and performative. Constative is descriptive language, while performative does more than describe, it brings something into being (p.161). We see this at play in Butler’s piece Imitation and Gender Insubordination. In this essay she spends time talking about ‘coming out’ and how the language of coming out continues to produce new ‘closets’. Butler states, “If I claim to be a lesbian, I ‘come out’ only to produce a new and different ‘closet’…the ‘you’ to whom I come out now has a different [view]…before you did not know whether I ‘am’, but now you do not know what that means…” she goes on to say “being ‘out’ always depends to some extent on being ‘in’...the sense of ‘outness’ can only produces a [new closet]” (Storey, 564).

            I believe that Butler gives us an interesting example how performing the discourse of ‘coming out’ both provides some freedom but only to the extent that it creates a new discourse for what it means to be in the closet. How lesbians and gay men choose to ‘come out’ is a performative act, but when this act takes place they are setting the ‘norm’ for those who are still in the closet. Think of examples we have seen of people ‘coming out’- maybe a friend caught them with a same sex partner, maybe a conversation was had with parents- all of these acts set the norm for how one should ‘come out’. When closeted individuals choose to not perform these acts, but choose a different option, they are not only setting new norms but they are reinforcing the closet.

            Just like ‘coming out’, Butler believes, that gender is a performative reality that we create through social performances and these performances count on consumption. Michael Warner said it best when he connected gay culture and consumption (and the same can be said of gender norms) we are part of the capitalist machine. Society produces images and products that are “so me” and when we buy or use these things we are creating performative acts. So if a gay man goes to a gay bar, he is buying into the image that this is what gay men do. He is part of a discourse that says if you want to be a cool gay man you have to go to this bar.

Taking a page from Brian's book. Look at these pictures of me (Crystal). What performative acts had to take place to transform me from tomboy to children's pageants? Think back to de Beauvoir belief that "one is not born a woman, but, rather, becomes one." 

You can't even tell my gender here? In fact I look like my brother!

In this one you can tell that my hair is longer at least giving the appearance of a female child.

Obviously there were some performative acts (whether it was my choice or forced by my mother) that took me from the photos above to this.

1. Does feminism have too much influence on today’s society?

2.     What are the issues you have with the four types of feminism? Explain why it’s an issue?

3.     What performative acts must you do on a daily basis in order to maintain your femininity or masculinity? If you believe you go against the grain and do not perform such acts explain if you are treated different? Do people acknowledge that you are not performing your gendered norm?

4.     What are your thoughts and reactions to the following quote: “Drag is not the putting on of a gender that belongs properly to some other group…there is no proper gender, a gender proper to one sex rather than another, which is in some sense that sex’s cultural property” (Storey, 568).     

Bodies, Bio-power and Bio-politics

The Body:

            Black...child...endangered...species. A physical marking, a stage of life, an existential threat, part of a larger group who have real, concrete individual and collective needs that must be addressed. These few categories, Foucault would argue, are all examples of the expressions of power interacting at the level of the body. Indeed, Foucault argues that in the transition from what he calls the Classical period to the period that brought with it the age of enlightenment, the rise of capitalism and the human sciences the concept of power transitioned from the right of a sovereign to either make die or let live to an expression of power whose aim is to administer and maintain life.

            Black...child...endangered...species. The child in the picture above, if I understand Foucault correctly, exists in the midst of a multiplicity of forces—a multitude of power relations—that are continuously categorizing, ordering, naming, placing and managing him from birth. He is not a vague theoretical concept—nor is he the object of a top-down exercise of power. He is affected in his physical form by the expressions of power in the society into which he was born and exerts forces—expresses power—himself. From the moment he enters into a family, he will begin to be affected by the discipline Foucault says characterizes the power expressed on, in and through bodies. By rituals of repetition, spatial placement, arrangement of resources and countless other effects, he will be trained to be efficient and useful, yet docile. In school, he will be on a rigid time schedule and will repeat the same routine every day for years, but not before he has submitted to medical testing and manipulation, been registered and verified.

            Before he is six years old, he will have been examined and scrutinized in more ways than he can count. When he enters kindergarten, before he is taught to spell his own name, he will be taught to sit, stand, line up, walk and stop on command. And if he does not comply with the norms established, then he will move through a series of procedures that will further investigate, measure and categorize him in attempts to produce a normal response until, ultimately, if he does not comply with the norms, he will participate in the system of strict disciplinary activity that is the penal system. It is not the fact that he is a subject of the law that makes this possible, but that he is an embodied being on and in whom the relations of power in his society are at work. His body is, “directly involved in a political field; power relations have an immediate hold upon it; they invest it, mark it, train it, torture it, force it to carry out tasks, to perform ceremonies, to emit signs” (173).

The disciplining of the body takes many forms

Let's look again at the original picture, shall we?

Only the child's picture is shown, but the statement in the picture serves to implicate Black women as abnormal, endangering factors to their own children. This child has made it into the world safely, but—if we believe this picture—many do not. In a society whose collective aim is now to manage and promote life, an entire group of women are implicated in the destruction of life. If the above description of the first years of the child's life is (as I hope it is) an accurate description of the expressions of disciplinary power relations on the body, what is happening to Black women in this picture opens us to the concepts of bio-power and bio-politics.

           

Bio-Power and Bio-Politics:

            The reason this little baby can be investigated and examined as thoroughly as he can is because of the advancements of the sciences during 19^th century. Foucault—in line with his understanding of knowledge/power—understands the specialization of the sciences to have contributed to the powers of surveillance and categorization. Along with the disciplines' power to control the productive capacity and docility of bodies, advances in medical knowledge increased the power to extend and enhance life. With the advancement of the sciences, the body and all of its functions and needs and interests are presumed to be “knowable” and with this new knowledge comes a new form of power relation—bio-power. Bio-power, according to Foucault:

evolved in two basic forms…the first to be formed, it seems—centered on the body as a machine: its disciplining, the optimization of its capabilities, the extortion of its forces, the parallel increase of its usefulness and its docility, its integrations into systems of efficient and economic controls, all this was ensured by the procedures that characterized the disciplines: an anatomo-politics of the human body (261-262).

This form of bio-power is what we see in the conditioning of the baby by ritual and social norming. The training of his body from childhood to perform in the ways that are acceptable and fruitful to his society. We can clearly imagine the baby in physical form and the forces that will seek to train his body. Most of us have been children in this country. We can estimate some of the ways in which power will invest his little body without much difficulty, however, when we consider the second form of bio-power, the picture this picture becomes both clearer and more complicated.

The second, formed somewhat later, focused on the species body, the body imbued with the mechanics of life and serving as the basis of the biological processes: propagation, births and mortality, the level of health, life expectancy and longevity with all the conditions that can cause these to vary. Their supervision was effected through an entire series of interventions and regulatory controls: the bio-politics of the population (262).

            The above is not just a picture and a fact. It is an argument in a bio-political discourse. Why is the Black child an endangered species? Because some statistics show that Black women are more likely to abort their fetuses than white women and other minorities. Demography—the statistical study of populations—is one of the many tools through which bio-politics organizes living beings in a living world. Because the sciences produced the knowledge that Black women abort fetuses more often than white women (statistics that others question and challenge), and because bio-power is expressed in the administering of life, it is no surprise that a movement toward mitigating what may be considered by some to be the ritual destruction of life was born to address this issue. It would be easy for someone like with me—someone with a strictly pro-reproductive rights/justice orientation—to dismiss these billboards as products of flawed ideology or attempts at top down control of Black women, but Foulcault calls me to consider this a little more deeply.

        If power is productive and discourse constitutes realities—then the “endangered Black child” is no matter of abstraction, but a reality—produced by power/knowledge—that must now be managed. The creation of the endangered Black child also implicates other bodies in its situation. If the Black child is in danger of being aborted because statistics tell us so, then there are implications that point to the Black woman. If she—in a world of power relations that seek to manage life—is making the decision to stop life, then her own life must be inspected, investigated and categorized in order to situate it in terms abnormal vs. normal. This particular billboard (as have many images of the Black woman in Western discursive practices) seems to seek to categorize her as abnormal. It does not say why—it only needs to produce an endangered child in order to point—through the web of the discourse that surrounds the “proper” functioning of a woman and a mother—to an abnormal mother.

            Luckily, Foucault reminds us, power is no longer the possession of any one person or group. So even as statistics produce knowledge about Black female bodies that seems to imply abnormality and permit punitive action, other forms of knowledge/power express themselves within the same bio-political discourse to challenge those forces. When this particular expression of the bio-political discourse that seems to classify Black women as dangerous and irresponsible—abnormal—reared its head in 2010 it immediately attracted attention and encountered opposition in the form of other bio-political powers. The statistics that supported the argument were investigated more closely and new knowledge was produced. Several groups of people who had been operating independently of each other combined their knowledge/power to create a new, concrete reality—an organization AND a movement called Trust Black Women.

Trust Black Women—in response to the messages deployed by these billboards and other tactics—utilizes medical knowledge, psychology, sociology, economics, urban anthropology, political advocacy and the arts in order to express the relations of power found in the lived experiences of women as decision-makers. Their use of all of the tools of as many of the sciences available to them in order to help categorize the Black female population differently from the way it has been categorized in the picture above is a bio-political strategy—seeking to address the lived existence of a population in the midst of political forces that are ever changing and influencing it.



"Sapphire" angry and overbearing



Questions for reflection/discussion:

1) Where and how do you see Bio-political strategies expressed in each of the presidential candidates' main messages. (The birth control debate is TOO easy!!!)

2) I mentioned before that discursive practices surrounding Black women's bodies in the West have often categorized them as abnormal. To the righ are three of the images that have been used to do so. How do you think biopolitics plays itself out in the deployment of such images? Which one of these is most likely to create an "endangered" Black child?



3) What other bio-political discourses are important to you and why?

"Mammy" asexual and safe



"Jezebel" sexually available and dangerous







Post-Structuralism

Post-Structuralism

From Marx, we learn that power dynamics and hierarchy are rooted in the economical structure. Althusser shows us the problematic that exists in ideological structures where assumptions are made based on what is presented as real. Gramsci posits a conscious adherence to “social stability” (CTPC 80) that creates a hegemonic structure. Lacan explains the psychological structure of the lack and the Real. All of these theorists connote a system of perceived reality and that which truly underlies that perception—the false consciousness, the imaginary, the assumed, the Symbolic, all undermining true relationships, reality, the actual, and the Real. The framework of these theories is exemplified in Saussure’s structure of language, explaining structure in terms of parole and langue and signifier and signified.

Post-structuralism can be thought of as what structuralism evolved into. In some ways, it does not separate itself entirely from structuralism but is a critique of structuralism and questions the “stability” on which structuralism depends. Post-structuralism does not shift it’s focus to a new subject of study (e.g. economy or the psyche), but, like structuralism, continues to examine the nature of “meaning” in terms of language. However, unlike structuralism, post-structuralism doubts that there is a reality “out there” (even though structuralism claims that reality is always fleeting). Post-structuralism demonstrates the incoherence of the systems of discourse, the dual and chaotic nature of meaning, the falsity of universal truths, the malleability of human kind or that which makes us different, and the unpredictability of “systems.” Whereas structuralism focuses on the structure and system themselves, post-structuralism focuses on the readers or speakers participating in that structure (http://webs.wofford.edu/whisnantcj/his389/differences_struct_poststruct.pdf).

Language, Power, and The History of Sexuality

Michel Foucault shows this post-modern approach to language by explaining that “power produces reality; through discourses it produces the ‘truths’ we live by” (CTPC 130). In other words, discourse produces knowledge, thus enabling, constraining, and constituting the reality in which we live. Knowledge isn’t just produced, but it is organized through our interpretations upon interpretations of discourse. “Power produces knowledge…power and knowledge directly imply one another” (CTPC 130). You cannot have one without the other. Both power and knowledge are intrinsically tied into language. Foucault illustrates the nature of power through discussing sexuality in the Victorian Era in his The History of Sexuality.

To better understand Foucault and post-structuralism, I think it is important to get a grasp of his repressive hypothesis. The repressive hypothesis refers to the idea that sexuality is “something ‘essential’ that the Victorians repressed” (CTPC 129). You cannot talk about sex or have sex except within the bounds of marriage, a ceremony that was only recognized by the State. Of course, there were rebellions to this—men going to brothels, detailed confessions to religious clergy. Society (as controlled by the bourgeoisie) looked down upon sexual desires and expressions of sex, and therefore the appropriateness off sexuality was ultimately defined by the bourgeois. This led to a sexual revolution in which men and women needed to break free from such repression.

Foucault rejected this hypothesis, asking: 1) Is it reasonable to conclude that there is a correlation between the rise of the bourgeoisie in the 17^th century and sexual repression? 2) Is power (or what we think of as power) expressed through repressing society? 3) Because we tend to define and analyze the 17^th century as a distant culture/time apart from ours, we assume that we are different from it in terms of repression and power. Our we separate and can we make judgments about repression? (HS 10). Foucault is asking why we tend to talk about sexuality in terms of repression and rebellion. Why do we perceive sexuality like we do, and how did we get to the point of perceiving sexuality as being repressed? “What Foucault calls ‘regimes of truth’ do not have to be ‘true’; they have only to be thought of as ‘true’ and acting on as if ‘true’” (CTPC 130).

It is interesting to think about sexual repression in the context of the 21^st century. Is society still fighting against the oppression just as those in the 17^th century were perceived to do? If so, how have the weapons changed but continued within the same war? For example, the legalization of gay marriage is arguably the hottest debate currently in the U.S. How have gay-rights activists talked about a history of repression in terms of same-sex expression? Is even saying “gay-rights activists” a reflection of how society perceives sexual power/repression? As stated earlier, discourse produces power, and power is not necessarily something that comes from “the top” and enforced upon the “controlled masses.” It is created through discourse generated by society’s perception of repression. How could “don’t ask don’t tell” be looked at through a Foucauldian lens to demonstrate the incapacitating of power as discourse of "asking and telling" is silenced?

In the following clip, Conan O’brien pushes the envelope, or he maybe about to. Does the expression “push the envelope” reveal something about how modern-day society thinks of the boundaries of “taboo” subjects like sex?

Panoptic machine meets biopolitics and the carceral society.

In 1787 Jeremy Bentham designed a new type of prison, the panopticon. The basic design had tower constructed in the middle of the prison that would allow guards a 360-degree view of prisoners. The tower was constructed so that they never knew when they were being observed. Bentham stated that the panoptic was “a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind…” and believed the panoptic design would be used by multiple establishments (schools, hospitals, etc.) as an inspection tool (Storey, p. 131).

Foucault was fond of the panopticon and what it meant for the surveillance of society. He believed that this type of prison forced the prisoner to be aware of his visibility. In his own words Foucault said the following “the major effect of the Panopticon is to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power…surveillance is permanents in its effects, even if it is discontinuous in its action” (Storey, p.131). The prisoners, being aware of the ‘guard’ watching them, monitor their actions, not having any way to determine if there is in fact a guard in the tower. When they engage in this type of activity Foucault claims they are playing a dual role: the role of both prisoner and guard. As a society we do this all the time!

The panopticon, for Foucault, represented a shift in power and social control. Prior to Betham’s design the focus was on punishment (think about the public beheadings and hangings) and then to discipline afterwards. This shift and use of surveillance “has become the dominant mode of the operation of power” (Storey, p. 132).

Take a minute and think about the following scenario:

How many of you have been speeding down the highway when you suddenly see the cop car sitting under the overpass? As you drive past you cannot see through the tinted windows. We have no way of telling if there is a police officer sitting in the car. If you are any thing like most drivers the second you see the car you tap your brakes and slow down. The same could be said for the cameras at traffic lights. Not knowing if there is an actual officer nearby we engage in self-surveillance. While this is not the panopticon these types of power and surveillance techniques directly flow from Bentham’s design and are examples of Foucault’s surveillance theory.

In the United Kingdom the use of CCTV is another example of how surveillance is used. Below is a video from the UK which addresses the issue of surveillance and power.

Throughout our Lemert reading we continue to see Foucault’s interest in the panopticon. In an excerpt from Discipline and Punishment, Foucault discussed the implications of the panopticon on the “entire social body”. Foucault believed that this transformation of society had several important results. Below are three of Foucault’s six results.

1.) Prison gave us ‘delinquents’. The prison system does not simply take offenders and toss them away; this type of system uses them as examples. Foucault states that panoptic society uses imprisonment as a form of defense (omnipresent armature). The delinquent is then used to transfer from discipline to law (Lemert, p. 418). For Foucault this meant that the delinquent was nothing but a product of the institution. A way to deter society from actions, which might land them in prison!

2.) The power to punish abnormal or deviant actions becomes natural; it does so by lowering tolerance for acts of deviance. Foucault raises an interesting point in the following statement, “…the authority that sentence infiltrates all those other authorities that supervise, transform, correct, improve. It might even be said that nothing really distinguishes them any more except the singularly ‘dangerous’ character of the delinquents…” (Lemert, p. 420). What sets the executioner apart from the soon to be executed?

3.) The prison system paved the way for “new form of law” (Lemert, p.420). Simply stated, it gave a judge (school teacher, government official, etc.) the ability to “assess, diagnose, recognize the normal and abnormal and claim the honour of curing or rehabilitating” (Lemert, p.420). With this new system members of society can even act as judges! Think to times when you have examined a situation or person and found the situation to be abnormal. You can thank the carceral society for this ability!

While Foucault did not wish to be classified by terms such as post-structuralism, his approach to power and the panoptic suggest that he would fall into this category. Post-structuralism suggest that meaning is unstable. After reading and exploring Foucault this reminds us of the instability of ‘normal’ society. I believe Marx would have shared some of Foucault’s theories. For Marx the panopticism would have been the bourgeoisie’s way of monitoring and exercising power over the proletariat.

Discussion Questions:

1. The textbook gave several examples of television shows and we also offered examples of panopticism. What are other modern day examples of panopticism?

2. What concerns does the use of panopticism raise?

3. Do you agree with Foucault’s views on the ways the carceral society has transformed the “entire social body”?

For all you LOST fans, here is an article that discusses Foucauldian themes in seasons one and two. You could make the argument that the entire show itself is based on notions of surveillance, particularly when Jack discovers the “lighthouse” in season six: http://loststudies.com/1.2/discipline.html

Here are a few “creeper” songs for your enjoyment.