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Panopticon's Subject Index Pp
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Panopticon's Subject Index Pp
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Milton's Paradise Lost, with its ambiguities and uncertainties, remains a clarion call for free expression even while it recognizes the possible costs to the individual of such freedom. Satan, ironically, the poem's tragic hero, embodies the proud freedom and independence of the individual who necessarily must suffer for having rebelled against the "just aristocracy of virtue under God." (Don M. Wolfe, Milton in the Puritan Revolution, New York: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1941, 246). Still, as Satan decides: "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven." See John Milton, Paradise Lost, bk. 2. Reprinted in Great Books of the Western World (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1955).
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~~~~~~~~~~
See also Foucault, the Panopticon and Power:
~~k.i.s.s.~~
So What
Is It?
The Panopticon was a 19th century prison design where people knew
they were being watched at all times. It was an architectural design which
instilled social discipline on the prisoners. Foucault
used it as a metaphor to describe how people internalize social disciple on
themselves because they are always under surveillance.
More
information: a) Proposed originally by Jeremy Bentham in early
19th-century England, the panopticon was a prison design that respresented
an architectural system of social discipline which could be applied not only
to prisons but also asylums, factories, etc. Individuals would be kept
isolated in rings of individual cells, all of which would be observable from
a central observation tower. These individuals, who could not see their
observers, had to assume they were under observation at all times. Under
such circumstances they would have to discipline themselves to follow the
institution's rules at all times.
b) Foucault used the panopticon as a metaphor to describe the modern disciplinary power apparatus based on isolation, individuation, and supervision, i.e., the way people police themselves because they feel they are always being watched and therefore have to act properly to prevent punishment -- but watched by whom? is a cental question. Not the state, says Foucault - that's a Marxist argument; remember, Foucault is a poststructuralist thinker.
c) So who's opressing whom? Where's the power? Foucault argues that people exercise power over other people; everyone has a little power; "power networks" form which control everybody.
d) This unsatisfactory answer infuriated Marxists and most other thinkers.
See Foucault,
Discipline and Punish, pp. 195-228.
12/97
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Periodization
- ascription of certain characteristics to a certain historical, cultural,
or political frame, e.g., decadeism (certain feelings or ideas
associated with the 1950s, 1960s-ness, etc.), however there are no clear
boundaries between cultural eras -- decades and other clearly defined
periods are jusy handy mental pigeonholes (or bookmarks) which people use to
set off periods of history in their heads.
The same thing holds
true when we try to assign tidy dates to social/cultural/political periods.
For example, when did the medieval period end and "modern" Europe really
begin? 1500? 1648? 1848? Or when did the Second World War begin? 1937? 1939?
1941? 1919 even? (These dates have all been suggested by historians.) Has
the modern period even ended? If so, when? (Charles
Jencks supposedly has an answer to this, if you're interested -- see the
Modern
architecture entry.) And so on and so forth. Of course none of these
have easy answers. But they make you think about your preconceptions and
cultural prejudices.
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PHENOMENOLOGY
The study of
phenomena, like consciousness, experience, etc.
More to come . . .
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"Phonocentrism" - being obsessed with the voice. Traditional
western philosophy is phoncentric, the voice proves what it is saying by
virtue of the fact that it is spoken, immediate (the "inner voice").
See
also Logocentrism.
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Post-colonial
studies is a literary movement, emerging mostly from within English
departments in the United States and elsewhere, that attempts to describe
and understand the experience of colonized peoples -- before and after
colonization -- by an examination of texts: books, images, movies,
advertising, and so on.
Currently under
construction, being prepared as a Special
Topics section.
11/97
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POSTFORDISM
Criteria:
1) Business switch
from industry to service (e.g., 2/3 of world ships once built in Glasgow,
Scotland; now Glasgow tries to be a cultral center).
2) New patterns of
industrial distribution (e.g., computers are made all over not just near
IBM headquarters).
3) Intensifying globalization alters sense of space
and time; decisions are made faster. ("space/time" compression) this is
influenced by media as well as economic situation).
4) Weakened power
of trade unions, high unemployment, "classification" - less secure jobs,
increase in low-paid jobs, localization of wage bargaining, women are
being brought in more as low-paid part- time workers.
5) Contemporary
capital is hypermobile
and hyperflexible (see Kevin Robins), nothing is forever, speed of capital
leads to "deterritorialization" - no connection between and area and where
things are made (eg. Glasgow).
6) Many theorists thought post-Fordism
would lead to more local, almost medieval forms of production. This has
not happened, at least not yet:
a) global capital floats all over the
world, states often loose control (e.g., Black Wednesday).
b) fewer and
fewer people control more and more production.
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POSTMODERNISM
** There are still
elements of modernism in certain fields but superimposed on that is an
element of postmodernism. Various countries & cultural fields (eg art,
architecture, music) develop at different speeds.**
II.
Postmodernity:
Economic Foundations And Context. Postmodern prose:
Elle, March 1993 -- uses language robbed from its real meaning; for
example, you don't really become a "waif" or a "bohemian" or a "new
sophisticated bag lady"; signifiers do not mean what they appear to mean;
have been split off from their signifieds.
See also:
k.i.s.s.
I.
Perhaps
one of the best ways of understanding postmodernism and its predecessor,
modernism,
is to look at examples of how these concepts have affected different areas
of our culture, arts, sciences, and so on. For a brief outline of how this
has happened, click here to check out Modernism
and Postmodernism: Some Symptoms & Useful Distinctions (part of
this site's new
media literacy project). (5/98)
Postmodernism,
characteristics of:
1) Mediatization:
media messages only speak about signs, not about what they mean.
2) Hyperreality
(Baudrillard's term)
3) Textualization.
4) Style over substance.
5)
Irony.
6) Pastiche.
7) McLuhan's
"Global village", combining and merging cultures.
8) Depthlessness.
9)
Confusion of time and space.
a) Move away from Fordism.
b)
Capitalist crisis of the 1970s leads to cultural invasion of society. (e.g.,
eating, housing, furniture, etc. all become part of culture)
c) Whole new
parts of culture become commodified for capitalism to survive in the
post-Fordist era.
d) Negative critics of capitalism in culture (e.g., Jameson)
argue that commodification replaces other areas of life like politics and
art.
e) If there is a link between cultural and economic change, we need
to understand those economic changes.
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POSTSTRUCTURALISM
I. II. a) Foucault takes
apart/deconstructs
systems (e.g., psychology and sociology) and asks how these disciplines have
imposed there own needs on how we look at the world; said it's better to
look at the little bits over the big picture (look at one prison instead of
society as a whole). III. These aspects of
postmodernity contribute to and are further influenced by a growing
representation crisis (see also mediatization).
IV. V. VI.
(Also due for a major
upgrade in the near future. DB)
To poststructuralists,
such as Derrida
and Foucault
(as well as whole generations of Existentialists) the big problem with
traditional Western philospophy is its insistence on looking for ultimate
truth.
1.) Nietzsche
was arguably the first to begin to dispute this. He argued that getting a
handle on truth/reality is always difficult (who's truth are we dealing
with? for example). Conceptions of "truth" are invariably linked to
power.
2.) Foucault, Derrida and Lyotard
were very influenced by Nietzsche's questioning of truth.
What do
Lacan, Derrida, and Foucault have in common that makes then
poststructuralist?
b) Derrida deconstructs language
and Western philosophy. When language tries to deal with society as a whole,
signifiers slide into other signifiers without reaching a signified; only
reach meaning when working on a small level.
c) Lacan (most difficult to
understand) decenters the self; says self is constructed in language. Lacan
decenters the source of knowledge and assumptions of Western thought by
destabilizing self.
How
does poststructuralism depart from structuralism
and how is poststucturalism an underlying basis for postmodernism?
Poststructuralism radicalized the ideas of power (Foucault), knowledge and
meaning (Derrida), and self (Lacan).
Poststructuralist theory emphasizes
the following:
a.) It transforms ideas about self, knowledge, meaning and
power.
b.) Political fragmentation.
c.) General atomization.
d.)
Disillusion.
e.) Nuclear/ecological future.
f.) The notion of self and
identity; searching for an image (e.g., "going ethnic").
Poststructuralism
and structuralism have some things in common:
1) Both concepts, in their
own ways, made attacks on the concept of the human subject (self).
a)
Philosophers from the Greeks to Nietzsche thought of the self as a free,
conscious, aware, autonomous center.
b) Structuralists (maybe beginning
with Marx)
began to attack this idea; as a product of systems, the self is
undermined.
2) Both concepts examine idea of meaning. Structuralism does
this with semiotics; poststructuralism takes semiotics further to critique
meaning.
Poststructuralism
is a critique of:
1) the stable sign.
2) the human subject.
3)
identity.
4) truth.
Extreme poststructuralism says there is "nothing
outside the text" (e.g., Baudrillard claiming the Gulf War didn't happen);
but poststructuralism sometimes seems more extreme than it is.
Prominent
poststructuralist thinkers include:
1.) Derrida, prominent
deconstructionist (1930 - ) Language/knowledge & meaning.
2.)
Foucault, prominent deconstructionist (1926 - 1984)
Power/prison/history.
3.) Both were heavily influenced by Lacan,
deconstructionist (1908 - ).
All three are interrelated in Paris and were
affected by poststructuralist thought.
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POWER
Power &
Foucault.
1) Foucault took the asylum as a metaphor for the way the
modern state incarcerates us and inflicts surrveillance and control over
us.
2) The mechanisms of power that exist in modern institutions
(asylums, barracks, schools, prisons, hospitals, universities) could be
applied to society as a whole; they are all ways in which power can
replicate itself.
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In cultural theory terms, this is Marshall McLuhan's conception of broadcast media (and, by extension, the Internet) as extensions of our brains. Just as literal prostheses (i.e., the usual dictionary definition) are mechanical extensions of our bodies (mechanical arms, legs, etc.), so the communication network is a figurative prosthesis that acts as an extension of the nervous system. Now that the electronic communication has spread around the world, so has our neural network. "Television has become our eyes, the telephone our mouths and ears; our brains are the interchange for a nervous system that stretches across the whole world" (Woolley, 125).
A lot of people get
confused with prosthesis as it's used in this context, getting it confused
with terms like "tool". So how is "prosthesis" different from a "tool", and
how does the former term help us to understand the new elctronic
environment? Well, I would argue that the word "tool" has become too closely
identified with a physical object (a hammer, computer, etc.) while
"prosthesis" can be adapted (in its figurative sense) to describe the
function of communicating -- something which the brain helps us to
do, and which can be extended by communications media. Thinking of it is a
function instead of an object is useful because, in our (well, at least
my) primarily Western orientation to the world we tend to think too
objectively (as in terms of tools, which are not actually part of us)
instead of subjectively (as in terms of prostheses, which
are).
11/97
See also:
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PSYCHOANALYSIS
The root of
most of our modern conceptions of the nature of the self, Freudian
psychoanalysis provides a base from which we can understand how our "self"
is constructed, and from there gives us some clues about how that self is
being affected by the emerging age of computers and new media.
The primary purpose of
psychoanalysis is to explore the unconscious and figure out what's wrong.
"The subject of Freud
is most often encountered in states of extreme alienation. Driven by
compulsions over which it has little or no control, haunted by repressed
desires, shaped by traumatic experiences that it can neither fully recall
nor clearly articulate, the self as Freud depicts it is not bound up with
secure possession but with instability and loss. Such articulation of
identity as exists occurs in states of self-abandonment -- in dreams and
parapaxes -- and the self seems lost not only to others but to the cunning
representations of others within the self" (Greenblatt 134).
If the historical
impact of Freud "is bound up with a sustained . . . assault on the
optimistic assumption of a centered, imperial self, the network of
psychoanalytic scandals -- the unconcious, repression, infantile sexuality,
primary process -- nevertheless confirms at least the romantic assumtion
behind the discredited optimism: the faith that each child is the father of
the man and that one's days are bound each to each in biological necessity.
This necessity secures the continuity of the subject, no matter how
self-divided or dispersed . . ." (Greenblatt 134).
According to
Greenblatt (142) psychoanalysis can become relevant to historical subjects
(e.g. psychologically deep readings of Renaissance texts) only when it
"historicizes its own procedures." There are signs of this historicizing
process taking place, "most radically in the school of Hegelian
psychoanalysis associated with the work of Jacques
Lacan, where identity is always revealed to be the identity of another,
always registered . . . in language" (Greenblatt 142).
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CT. Subject Index
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5,
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