STEVE-O idylic ideologies...?

So where to begin my hail….
I would like to start my subjugation of subject with this quote, “the tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living” (C 34). This seems like a recurring theme of Postmodernism…the return to some concept of the past…a Nostalgic mode—a New Historicism—a tradition soon to be reinterpreted…Postmodernism seems never far off or completely apart from the Modern, it seems… Habermas-like... a high-Modernism or extension thereof.

The idea “that ideology is a gigantic masquerade” (C 34), is very Simulacric. Even more consuming in the ideology of ideology is the notion of false consciousness. This illusion can connect us to the Fakeness of Disney…or the precession of Simulacra or the panoptic mechanism…I think all our theorists are desperately trying to convince us that there is a material UNMATERIAL…a matrix which we all believe, put that under erasure, which we all have no ability to comprehend due to the subjective nature of consciousness or maybe our unconscious reactions to the things which we can’t see. Our response to the Trace of the past, the present, the future all of which have been temporalized to a breaking point (breakdown of the signifying chain) which has us wondering what is the differAnce… Do we “agree to be led through explicit, active and conscious choice or is a less premeditated and conscious acquiescence or non-resistance sufficient?

All I know is that the R.O.G. is the hegemonic power, and I must obey his commands…err…requests, for we would not want to see him get violent.


“Cash, Rules, Everything, Around, Me
CREAM
Get the money
Dollar, dollar bill y'all” Method Man

One

E.M. Pre-Class Post 10-31

Reading Louis Althusser's "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses--- I thought to myself where have I seen the word state apparatuses before. Then it came to me I read about it in Zizek. When he wrote about the Pentagon and the White House seeking out top level Hollywood Brass to work togeather., "...aim of co-ordinationg the war effort and establishing how Hollywood could help in the 'war aginast terrorism by getting the right ideological message across not only to Americans but also to the Hollywood public across the globe-- the ultimate empirical proof that Hollywood does in fact function as an 'ideological state apparatus." (Zizek 234) Althusser quotes, " I shall say rather that every state apparatus whether Repressive or Ideological, 'functions' both by violence not bto confuse the Ideological State apparatus to the (Repressive)State Apparatus." (Althusser 43) The United States is using Ideological State Apparatus on the American Public to get us to buy in to our 'war on Terror' --- otherwise we would scream and stomp our feet loosing our basic rights --- The final stages of the patriot Act to go into permanent use is in Congress now. No longer just a war time situation - We will be wire tapped and spied on at Random for how ever long our goverment wishes. It might seem benign now --- Then again most of us don't remember the McCarthy Hearings on Un-American Activities -- Many regular Americans lost everything because of it. In my experience Ideology and individuality do not often mesh well. To criticize the war in Iraq -- is considered un-American ---i.e. not in keeping with the current ideology of the U.S.

PetalswiththeWind Marx and Engels

It is public knowledge that politicians have self serving agendas. However, the same types of leaders continue to be re-elected ruling our living conditions based on their belief systems. Is it not a conflict of interest of society at large to remain in a hegemonic state that continues to take us in an on going circle? The ruling class’ ideology has us at war once again, and it is not them who are dying for their own cause, we are. Today politicians prance around like celebrities, rather than being there to serve the people as a government of democracy. World leaders of today are so far away and detached from the people, viewing themselves above, rather than apart of the human race, wanting the glory of Gods. With a following of fans glorifying them as if they are Gods.
Where has the passion for living gone? It is out of our hands, and passivity has replaced it? Marx and Engels explain, “the phenomenon that ever more abstract ideas hold sway, i.e., ideas which increasingly take on the form of universality” (40). Ideology points to the singularity of ideas. If there is only one “right” way of thinking, then there should only be one person in existence in the whole entire world. If we all share the same set of ideologies, it’s as if only one person is alive. Does a universal consensus of an idea make it true for all, and if so, even in simple arithmetic there is more than one way to get to an answer, and when problems get more complex in the subject of Math and life there are no exact answers. The seriousness of life is that we all only know or have this one chance to live it. Yet we are told and taught to live it in certain ways, fulfilling the dreams of others, and dreaming the dreams that we are told are ours.

RB, Marx and Marx and Engels

What went wrong? Chavez, do you want to take this one? How about Castro? Jung Il? Tell me why you’ve tarnished the name Marxism. Post it in comments below. From the way I see it, Marx was a humanitarian. He was a champion of the little guy. Why is it when someone tries to bring peace to the world, other people twist the message to fit their own self-interest?

It’s confusing! The good person’s name becomes synonymous with the message of delusional people who spread hatred in the name of the good person. As a result, many people shudder at the name Marx and the name Jesus and the name Muhammad and the name God. The people who butcher the original messages, however, aren’t the only ones perpetuating the misconceptions; the people who reject the original message because they can’t see past the butchered message are responsible, too.

Such is the work of hegemony. Derrida’s idea that people in power define language fits. James Dobson represents Christ, bin Laden represents Muhammad, and Chavez represents Marx. (At the UN General Assembly, the book Chavez recommended President Bush read is Hegemony or Survival. From one hegemonic jackass to another.) Marx’s message becomes “Ayer estuvo el diablo aquí. En este mismo lugar huele a azufre. ... En esta misma tribuna, el señor presidente de los Estados Unidos, a quien yo llamo el diablo, vino aquí hablando como dueño del mundo.”

What did Marx say? “In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a definite stage of development of their material productive forces. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness” (37).

People are defined by economic status. The little guy never has his champion because there is always the little guy, even after a revolution. The Tramp becomes trapped in industrial gears; he becomes part of the machinery. The fact is no form of government has successfully eradicated the sin and woe in this world.


Charlie Chaplin as the Tramp in Modern Times.

“Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all the others that have been tried from time to time” (Sir Winston Churchill).

ginny t. Althusser

Hi, it's me again. This is my last blog for at least 4 days, I promise.

As soon as I got over the excitement that the reading assignments were relatively short, I was struck with the panicked thought "Holy crap, I have no idea what these guys are talking about!!"

So here I go, I'm picking a sentence and I'm just gonna go with it...

Althusser writes: "...every State Apparatus, whether Repressive or Ideological, 'functions' both by violence and by ideology..." (C 43)

When I was slogging through this essay, my mind kept referring back to a book I came across last semester, Benjamin Barber's Jihad Vs. McWorld. This terrifying little tome is all about the destruction of the traditional Nation (Repressive) State and the rise of the shadowy, elusive "Multinational Corporation." Barber warns that the power held by traditional, structured, centered Governments is being usurped by the insidious Global Corporations; they transform this political and ideological might into pure, good old fashioned consumer driven Capitalism.

In Barber's world, every State Apparatus functions neither by violence or ideology, but rather they are driven by the almighty Doll$r. Actually, to clarify, Barber posits that what we know as "The State" ceases to exist in this globalization world. This fracturing of countries and societies leaves the people vulnerable to ideologies that promise structure, guidance and meaning (enter Jihad.) These two forces (Multinational Capitalism and Fundamental Ideologies) ultimately work with, not against, one another. Ideologies cannot thrive without the existence of their oppositions, and the acquiescence of the people to their causes, of course.

Wow...Barber's ideas sound a lot like my old friends Jameson and (hopefully) like Althusser. Man, back in the Spring, I was PoMo and didn't even know...

AS, Althusser

In the immortal words of Mrs. Broslofski, a.k.a. Kyle’s mom: “What, what, WHAT?!?” Basically, that’s my first gut reaction to Althusser – man of the thousand-use “ideology” and “subject of the Subject” times a subject to the nth subjective degree. ARGH. Who writes like this? I mean, really. ISA is a little less ambiguous than UFO, I’ll give you that. His underlying concept is actually pretty straightforward, if you cut through some purple prose: “There is no ideology except by the subject and for the subjects” (45). I get it; we allow our own subjectification by various “agents,” and conform almost unconsciously to the ruling ideology’s requirements. I would much rather stroll through life in my pj’s, but because the social norm directs apparel different for bed and for work (well, mostly), I end up in heels. How was it determined that heels are more acceptable daily footwear than bunny slippers? Depends on what ideology you’re subject to.

Althusser states that “each [ideological State apparatuses and their practices] was the realization of an ideology (the unity of these different regional ideologies – religious, ethical, legal, political, aesthetic, etc. – being assured by their subjection to the ruling ideology” (45). It’s easy to not see the puppet strings of every day life, but we all function on a normative path. We only see the rigid walls when something different is introduced. Which is why I can’t wait to see Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. For the uninitiated few, Borat is an alter ego of Sacha Baron Cohen. Cohen, the master mind behind “Da Ali G Show,” expertly conceals himself behind a mask of impeccable political incorrectness, and in the guise of a bumbling, bigoted, journalist, takes on American culture. The results – as far as the previews go – are cringingly hilarious. Cohen’s guerrilla warfare reveals, in Althusser’s terminology, the “so be it” attitude of those subject to the “ruling ideology.” It’s not pretty, but it sure is funny.

frouella 10/24 the after...

I'm the first to admit that I did not have the world's best understanding of Derrida before class on Tuesday, but now, after discussing him at length in class and having ample time to mull over what was said, I can say with confidence that Derrida... needs to get out more. Or he needed to, rather; I should use the past tense since he did shuffle off this mortal coil and all. Perhaps the most charitable thing I can say about the man is that reading Derrida makes me appreciate the time when I'm not reading Derrida. Seriously, if he would've just focused and done a little editing, he could've said what needed to be said in about 20 pages or so, and then gone and had lunch. With normal people. Ones who wouldn't focus on logocentrism or the differance (mind the "a" now!) or the quest for the ur-text. Yes, Jack, you're very smart -- now shut up.

The more theory I read, the more I'm reminded of the phrase that I wish I'd been clever enough to coin: intellectual inbreeding. What I mean by that is how these "intellectualists" only read what pertains to theory, only write what pertains to theory, only correspond with other theorists, to the point that they forget that everyone else who doesn't eat, sleep, and breathe theory has no idea what the heck they're talking about. I'm not talking garden-variety specialized jargon here; that's understandable and at times necessary when a person delves into a highly specialized field. What I mean is the deliberate obfuscation they seem to delight in, to the point that all meaning is lost. Which I find to be all the more ironic given that most of them are prattling on endlessly about language and signification, but I digress. In any event, what's the point of developing these grandiose theories if no one understands what you're talking about? According to Derrida himself, language needs both a sender and receiver. So by using his own logic, if Derrida talks and no one there can understand him, does that still qualify as language? Furthermore, if a Derrida falls in a wood, does he make a sound?

**sigh** Yes, I know what Derrida is trying (ever so inefficiently) to say, but what I'm saying is that once in a while, these theorists need to take some time to normalize and take a step back, if only to keep the big picture in mind. And their writing concise. Because ultimately theory IS supposed to have a purpose, no? It's not supposed to be about insecure intellectualists trying to impress each other with their vocabularies or confound each other with their abstruse theories, right? To that end, I can say that yes, Mr. Derrida sir, I understand that on language's molecular level, there's no way to know for sure how meaning is assigned or if it's even there at all, but I also know that if I go into a McDonald's and order a cheeseburger, they're gonna give me a cheeseburger. Granted, that's not the best example (and it's loaded with trans-fats, which may or may not soon become illegal in New York), but sorry -- I'm hungry.

For a better example, think of geometry:

This picture shows how it's possible to find the approximate area of a circle by inscribing an increasing number of regular polygons inside it (first a triangle, then a square, then a pentagon, etc.). As the regular polygon is divided into more and more triangles (for which the area can be calculated), the area becomes closer and closer to the area of the circle. So while it doesn't calculate the area of a circle exactly, it's close enough to get a pretty good idea. To me, that's what language does, too; in the Saussurean and Derridean view of things, where "there are only differences" and there is no "stable referent," language may not ever be able to convey an exact meaning, but it gets close enough to get the point across.

Random Po-Moment:
From the SciFi Tech blog:
"Samsung creates thinnest TV ever; tube sets develop eating disorder"
Well, it's kinda po-mo, if you tilt your head to the side and squint a little...

CL Althusser

This weeks readings struck a cord to me about our everyday lives. There are many things in our modern existence that we take for granite, or simply do not even recognize as functions. Althusser discusses the concept of ourselves as being subjects, and the practical rituals of our everyday rituals. He writes:

"But to recognize that we are subjects and that we function in the practical rituals of the most elementary everyday life (the hand-shake, the fact of calling you by your name, that fact that knowing, even if I do not know what it is, that you 'have'' a name of your own, which means that you are recognized as a unique subject, etc.)- this recognition only gives us the 'consciousness' of our incessant (eternal) practice of ideological recognition- its consciousness, i.e., its recognition- but in no sense does it give us the (scientific) knowledge of the mechanism of this recognition."

That is one long sentence. I have been thinking mostly of Saussure when I read this, and the idea of language. We need language to function. It does not necessarily make us believe that we are worth more "scientifically" or "eternal." Langauge, as Saussure would surely agree, is the most basic way we, as humans, function. But it is not the only way. Another type of language that we are all fluent in, our body language, plays a huge role in human interaction. As Althusser points out "the hand-shake" signifies a relationship between two people. We all know what it means- in our culture. In other cultures, different actions reflect the same idea.

The French kiss on both cheeks. The Japanese bow. I have a friend from Puerto Rico who told me that he used to kiss people on the cheek when he first moved to the U.S. like he used to do at home, but they got mad. Now he offers a very formal hand-shake to even his closest friends when he greats them. It is odd and overly formally, but he does not realize that he is being "too formal" for a friendly handshake. I view it as odd.

These cultural divides and language barriers will always keep us from communicating with one another fluently. But the "practical rituals" of everyday life will continue to demand. It is up to us to interpret them.

ix. Marx, Engels, and a pinch of Chomsky

Good read on Marx and Engels. Reminded me a lot of the documentary on Noam Chomsky titled Manufacturing Consent in which, rather than being physically bludgeoned into acquiescence towards the state, we are “convinced” through the media, consumerism, and rhetorical speeches and aphorisms that we are a “free” thinking society and peoples.

“[E]ver more abstract ideas hold sway, i.e., ideas which increasingly take on the form of universality” and are presented “as the only rational, universally valid ones” (C 40). This must be the ideology behind the magnetic yellow ‘ribbons’ of Support Our Troops. Creating universal aphorisms is another way of saying, “let’s create the most generic slogan.” And in this case, it’s one, which even people whom are against the war, must be in favor of. What does this nonspecific statement, “support our troops,” even imply? Does it mean we support our troops fighting a war (we ourselves don’t truly believe in nor truly support). Do we even think that far, or does this slogan only accomplish what it was manufactured to elicit, namely the knee jerk reaction of our vocal affirmation: “of course I support the troops! I’m not for the war but I’m for our fellow troops.” Okay, so assume that, yes, we support our troops. We are red, white, and blue-blooded Americans who have avowed our patriotic commitment by slapping on a magnet on the ass of our cars. Now what? Some Lebanese supported their troops. No doubt that’s why some people housed Hizballah troops (here we’d call it aiding and abetting, or worse yet, harboring terrorists). And what did that get these civilians: A “justifiable” bombing by the Israeli military.

Hmm. I wonder if there are yellow and green magnetic bumper stickers being sported on the back of Lebanese vehicles with a similar slogan, if not exactly the same verbatim, still similarly proclaiming their support.

Captain PMS, Althusser

Captain’s Blog Stardate 10/30

“The (Repressive) State Apparatus functions massively and predominantly by repression (including physical repression), while functioning secondarily by idealogy…the Army and the Police also function by idealogy both to ensure their own cohesion and reproduction, and in the ‘values’ they propound externally.”

When I was growing up one of the things that I was certain of was that I could trust the police. Cops were safe. I loved The Andy Griffith Show. Later, when I began driving, I was told that if you were pulled over by a police officer to make sure you asked to see his badge before rolling down the window, in case he was actually someone dressed as a cop. Still, cops were safe, it was the imposters that were dangerous. Then came the Rodney King video and all the movies where a cop was dirty (especially, it seems, if they were from L.A.) and violent. Suddenly, cops seemed a little less safe. Then I went to college where we learned about the Vietnam War, when students gunned down by cops for protesting were all over the newspapers, and police officers dressed in their KKK hoods harassed African Americans for being, well, African American. Cops could be the enemy. I got my first speeding ticket a couple of years into college. I began to hate cops.

The same evolution happened through the years with my feelings about the military. Let’s face it, no one was coming home from Korea in M.A.S.H. and killing their wives and children, as was the case a few years ago with the fighter pilot officers who returned after a tour in Iraq. Still, in my heart of hearts, I believe that most cops and military personnel are honorable and true to their purpose. Above all, I believe that they are noble in their cause. They believe different things than I do, but like me, their hearts are in the right place. So it makes me wonder why, as a culture, we love stories of bad cops and military personnel gone crazy. Is it because we love to tear our idols down, to see them fall before us for trying to be something we know we ourselves are not? Or do some of us just enjoy seeing the dissolution of an ideal we are asked to uphold as Americans. It has become a trend of politicians lately, to imply that questioning these fundamental ideals is un-American, yet our whole country developed because a small group of people did not wish to be told what their ideals should be. It is not binary. Cops are safe and unsafe, but above all they are just people.

ix 10/24

During the discussion in class of stable referent and trace I recalled an article in Falling Into Theory named “How to Recognize a Poem When You See One” by Stanley Fish. In it Fish discusses how he had been teaching two courses, one for the Linguistic Institute of America, and the other for the English Department of the State University of New York at Buffalo. He recounts how during one discussion (in the first course) on prominent linguists he wrote down these names on the board in the following order:

Jacobs—Rosenbaum
Levin
Thorne
Hayes
Ohman (?)

He did not erase the board when his other class—the “English religious poetry of the seventeenth century” course for NYU @ Buffalo—came in. Fish drew a frame around these names, told his class this was a religious poem and to interpret it. This is where the stability of these names/referents began to wobble and the trace, with its “layers of meaning" bled through. One student says this poem is a hieroglyph that is in the shape of either a cross or an alter. Other students chime in after scrutinizing the individual name/words and their order. Some posit that the first line is an allegory of Jacobs ladder but here the means of ascent is a rose tree or rosenbaum. Thorne, of course, was a referent to the crown of thorns. Levin was both a reference to the tribe of Levi, “of whose priestly function Christ was the fulfillment,” and a reference to the unleavened bread eaten by those lead out of Exodus and so on. One student went so far as to count the most common letters, and as Fish says, “to no one’s surprise,” they were S, O, N.

Fish further asserted that the names on the board themselves did not matter. Even if blank, the interpreter would see the trace of something in it, whether it be the absence of God, the non representation of Him, etc. This, he says is because “objects are made and not found, and they are made by the interpretive strategies we set in motion” because the “‘you’ that does the interpretive work…is a communal you and not an isolated individual” (268-274).

ginny t. 10/24

Wait, wait...so someone help me out here...does Derrida think there is there a God, an ultimate Ur-ness, or not?

I don't know about anyone else, but this whole "there is no stable referent" concept really messes with my mind. The idea that there may not be any kind of ultimate truth or meaning to life (ie there is no God or afterlife) is something I think about fairly often. Especially when I'm sitting at work, bitching about my job, or when I get all caught up in the latest celebrity gossip (Reese & Ryan are splitting? Say it ain't so!!) I'll catch myself getting utterly consumed by something pretty inane and I'll chuckle and think, "Oh man, if this is my only shot at life, I am really blowing it!"

Most of the time, I am so concerned with doing things the right way that I'm pretty much paralyzed to do anything at all. (Like write these blogs! Curses!) The irony of course is that while I'm not even sure that there is "anything outside the text" of life, I am somehow convinced that there is a "right way" to do things. And trust me, I want to believe that there is something more, something outside, this life. While my rational mind questions the fallible human concepts of God, there is some spark inside of me that is searching for The Light. I do have to agree with Derrida there, that we are all trying to transcend what we know to uncover that which we can't comprehend.

I'm living on the bubble between "nothing outside the text" and "the trace." It's the uncertainty that scares me. I want to do-the-right-thing-because-it's-what-I'm-supposed-to-do-but-doing-the-right-thing-keeps-me-from-really-living-and-doing-what-I-want-to-do.

Phew. This Postmodern, existential crisis is making me tired.

Deep Thunder- Althusser

“an ideology always exists in an apparatus, and its practice, or practices. This existence is material.” –Althusser

There we have it. Last weeks positing by my nicely smiled, curve-busting classmate has been explored by the next theorist. According to Althusser, the existence of ideology can manifest itself in the physical or concrete. It is, at the least, material. God (within his Abrahamic forms) is the ultimate ideology of western civilization .Perhaps it is through the subjects that this ideology is manifested. Through the works of the minister, for example, God is summoned and made material. This could probably be explored in the simple realm of energy and transference but we’ll save that.
Further to my hypothesizing last week, lets examine (thanks to Althusser) hypothesis three: our instructor is leading us down an ideological yellow brick road.
To examine this hypothesis we must revert to deSaussure, signs, the signifying chain, and its breakdown. It could be that the questions and ideas posited by my classmates are not so much the result of a collective consciousness, but rather, they are being led down the same signifying chain (our yellow brick road). The referent in question: the world as we know it.
Take each theorists name as a sign (which it is) and then look for its determiner/s. For example, the sign Baudrillard makes me think of the referent (if it can really be one) of Simulacra. So we are presented within this course, with signs (theorists) and their meaning we inject in our minds through the lectures, index cards, and whatever other madness that was needed to cram for the mid term from hell. These signs are being strung together by ROG and crotched into a signifying chain, with each sign carrying a referent assigned by our reading, interpretation, and discussion, most of which we do together. The referents (forgive me Derrida) are somewhat stable because they are assigned by the instructor and each other (the subjects).
Unlike Beaudrillard, I do not attach good or evil to my theories (or hypothesis) so I will posit that ROG is neither trying to save nor destroy us. Nevertheless, there is an ideology, an ideology that we have come to learn this week through our new sign Althusser, which is now manifested, and made material in us, our questions, and through our actions. Viva las signifying chain!

AS, 10/24

Did anyone else feel a sense of hopelessness when discussing Derrida? First, I found the reading very difficult. Then, our professor admitted the guy was on another playing field entirely – somewhere between lunacy and Mars. He is seeking God – a return to the beginning; what a bittersweet thought. I’m not sure God can be found, I think he must be felt. Primarily, I think we’re all seeking the same thing – a connection, an understanding. When I was 17, I went to Finland through an exchange program. Talk about DIFFERANCE. Only one person in the family of five I stayed with spoke English. Even then, we had a difficult time of it. Finnish is a very fluid, tonal language. Typically, native speakers will end their sentences with a sharp inhale that signals a completion of thought. It is a polite indication that the other may speak. I would rush and tumble over my English to the point where my host-sister thought I was rude and cutting her off. She spoke with no inflection, so I thought she didn’t like me. The others communicated through haphazard pantomime. Let’s just say “Bad doggie, stop eating my passport” doesn’t translate well in mime-speak. I took to walking through the village alone, just listening, trying to figure out what people were saying from watching their interactions. Then one day I heard the most beautiful sound: English, heavy on the Scottish. A Scottish missionary was passing out pamphlets in the market. I nearly wept with joy. I went that night to a cramped beige room, ate stale donuts and drank bitter tea – and felt at home because we understood each other. If finding the Ur is anything like finding the one other native English speaker in a 300 mile radius, it’s a fine feeling indeed.

AS, Foucault

Foucault suggests that “inspection functions ceaselessly” (94). I hate the idea of this quote as much as I hate the truth behind it. We are watched, measured, and judged every day of our lives. My boss reviews my work; my coworkers can see what is displayed on my computer screen; I look at the car next to me and the driver is looking back. I can’t run a red light at 3am on a lonely stretch of road because a little camera is mounted high above, ready to catalogue any indiscretion. What is school if not a panopticon for students: are we smart enough, on task enough, what’s the difference between an “A” and an “A-“, and why does that little dash matter so much? The new honor code plaques mounted in every room (much like the cameras over traffic lights) serve as an all-knowing eye…our integrity is questioned in every room; our work is suspect unless stamped with the coded seal of approval. I’m taking one class where the professor opens each session with a quiz. The professor made such a deal about how easily students slide down the slope of desperation into cheating that the class was instantly on guard – we knew without a doubt we were being observed, and observed closely. Several students were so freaked out by the fear of accidentally violating the honor code that the professor suggested using a cover sheet. A cover sheet in college suggested by paranoia. No one had any thought to cheat, but we all felt guilty for even an idle glance around the room, and were fearful that a simple action could morph into an accusation. Fear is a great motivator, especially when there is nothing to fear. So now we cover our quizzes like good children, and watch our neighbors warily.

Gary-Althusser & Marx

I'll attempt to say what I think Althusser is trying to convey, but I'll try to give my analysis without using the word IDEOLOGY twenty-two times on ONE PAGE!!! Here's my ideology, stop with the word IDEOLOGY so many times.

I agree with the Repressive State Apparatus and the Ideological State Apparatus. Unfortunately, (or fortunately depending on how you look at it) the repressive state will always have control. We that subscribe to the ideological state such as family, religion, education, politics, and culture will always find our "ideology" challenged or dominated by the repressive state. The repressive state is fine with my ideology as long as it does not differ from theirs.

This ideology is similar to the opinion of Karl Marx and the division of labor into mental and material. The repressive state represents the mental and the ideological manifests itself in the material. These theories align with our evolving two class society. The repressive state is eliminating the middle class as the gap widens between the "us" and "them". According to Marx, people escape the lower class during a revolution, but the victory is short because instead of making a change, they have raised themselves into the class that previously dominated them (40). Classes remain the same...just some of "us" become one of "them"..... and the gap widens as the cycle continues.

Oh, and me? I'm a "us" by definition, but I'm perfectly OK with it.

Bloggrokker (Scott) Althusser

Ideology=illusion/allusion?
Althusser/Ideological State Apparatuses==Godzilla?
It seems I've got no choice but to transplant Louis Althusser's concept of Ideological State Apparatuses, specifically the Cultural Ideological State Apparatus, micro-specifically the film wing of the Cultural Ideological State Apparatus, all the way to--despite and although I've got a feeling Althusser wrote addressing primarily Western societies--the most technologically-berserk, and, I might add, most postmodern--largely due, I'd suppose, to its ceaseless infatuation for and Lyotardian radically-eclectic cultural filtering (who remembers Shonen Knife?) of Western trends--among the Asian Pacific Rim states, Japan.
Before I go any further, if it weren't for that current ad running wherein The Madison Avenue Media-Mashers re-appropriated images from the terrible Americanized '98 Godzilla into a tele-shilling spot for Doritos or Fritos or something similar within The Annals of Salted Chipdom, the ad I happened to see right after reading Althusser, well, I might've had something more meaningful to report. Oh well, I recall Dr. Rodge saying bad tv habits were required for this class. Here goes.
Long story made brief, this ad brought to mind misty childhood memories of seeing the '54 Godzilla on tv, a moody exercise in scale-model-demolishing, and, as just about everyone into film history knows, a metaphor for atomic annihilation--an allusion to atomic annihilation.
And, as an allusion, the film, too, is an illusion--colossal radioactives reptiles aren't real, they're imaginary, but the resulting Geiger counter-gone-grave horrors, for the Japanese masses, are not.
And this brings me to Althusser's thesis: "Ideology represents the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence." As I see it, Godzilla is an ideological tool for hegemonic ends.
And what are these hegemonic ends? What were the Japanese coerced through film into accepting?
"Real conditions of existence"--the Japanese were treated to the realities of total destruction if a path somewhat resembling capitalism weren't followed.
They followed this path, and as they did, they whipped their great reptilian allusion to atomic annihilation into a bumbling pop-cultural ambassador, duking it out with Mothra and Ghidrah in a neverending string of sequels--ah, "sequelitis," that ever-popular capitalist cinematic syndrome.
I'll call what the hegemonic Japanese film industry did "Godzillification," or, if the original Japanese is preferred, "Gojirification"--the celluloid "monsterizing" of a historical tragedy for ideological ends.
And the terrible Americanized Godzilla as it relates to historical tragedies/ What might Baudrillard say?
He might say something regarding the precession of simulacra, something along the lines of "the map preceding the territory," something akin to the Americanized Godzilla being a transcultural simulacrum "precessing" the future tragedy of 9/11--the American film is centered in New York City--just as the original Japanese film is a hegemonic"processing" of a past tragedy.
And, hegemonies being hegemonies, what might future films reveal? Might there be a film in the works, either Japanese or American, that applies "Godzillification" to 9/11?
There's always the burgeoning Arabic film industry.
Can a bloated rubber suit be made for The Great Satan?

Mony Post-class 10/23

I am stuck in a panopticon.

I love conspiracy theories. Give me any literature, or movie on conspiracies and I am transfixed for hours. After talking about the concept of panopticons in class, I had an epiphany; I realized that my conspiracy theories are completely based on the panopticon form of imprisonment, but in this illustration it is not the inmates, it is the conspiracy theorists who are the prisoners.

I know that this is a crazy analogy, but let me tell you how I can relate the two. First in the typical panopticon structure the prisoners believe that there are guards in the tower, this can be compared to the conspiracy theorist believing that the government always has an underlying and secretive plan. Now, if there were no guards (conspiracies), the prisoners (conspiracy theorists) would never know this and still believe that the guards (conspiracies) have all the power, and still continue to remain powerless under their imaginary gaze. So with this in mind, I realize that the government used the concept of panopticon structure in keeping even conspiracy theorists in order, for they planted the idea of conspiracies in order for us to think they do have complete dominance over all services, when in reality - NO ONE HAS ANY POWER! This is the greatest conspiracy of them all.

JOH Marx & Engels

Greetings ~

Good reading this week, though I cannot say I was able to find much imaginative escape in any - especially Althusser, ISA, RSA, SPCA, YMCA, WWJD ...
The short bit from Marx & Engels proved somewhat interesting. During the excerpt, the authors state:

"For each new class which puts itself in the place of one ruling before it is compelled, merely in order to carry through its aim, to present its interest as the common interest of all the members of society, that is, expressed in ideal form: it has to give its ideas the form of universality, and present them as the only rational, universally valid ones." (C 40).

They go on to contrast that notion with the opposite, wherein the populous represents perspectives that are to the benefit of all others NOT of the ruling class (C 40). This type of balance appears to have been and continues to be the natural way that humans tend to govern themselves. Through marketing, most media ascribe to promoting same or similar content as everyone else. When there is a national crisis, we come together to be patriotic, good neighbors, etc.

Events like 9/11/01 and Katrina have the power to create deep identifications with American universality. It just so happens that these events, immediately Katrina and after a little time Iraq, have exaggerated the polarity that exists in this nation. The ruling class, through incompetence and/or sheer inaptitude as communicators, have managed to disarm the typically unifying energy borne of tragedy or trial. Interesting...

I wonder how the smallness of the planet is effecting the principles set forth in the Marx & Engels excerpt. Has technology and our ability for instant interaction on a global scale diluted our ability, as nonruling class, to create a unified message that forces the ruling class to make drastic adjustments? Rather than implying that the most serious issues facing American citizens can be resolved with ease, I am hoping to highlight a single aspect of the problem. It seems that the most prevalent characteristic complicating our ability to unify is dilution. As government, entertainment (distraction), and the need to survive continue to grow increasingly dynamic, our ability to unify and effect change could prove more and more impaired.

Captain PMS, 10/23

Captain’s Blog Stardate 10/29

Warning: If you haven’t seen last weeks episode of Lost, but are planning to watch it soon, disengage, I repeat, disengage.

C.L. said they wouldn’t want to bother you with their “newly discovered theories about a crazy island and the Others.” This was probably appreciated by most of you, however, I fully plan on bothering you with mine. Mine are not quite theories actually, they are more like comments, since I do my best not to guess at what is going to happen on Lost. This weekend when I sat down and watched the episode, I realized early on why Dr. Rog used the show as an example when discussing Foucault. The pacemaker bit was brilliant although, I must say, predictable if you were in postmodernism class on Tuesday. While normally I might have been wondering if Sawyer’s heart would explode any minute, instead I realized that they had not put anything in him at all, but were using his fear against him to gain control. I can’t think of a better example of the Panopticon prison technique. Then they further their control by showing him that he has no place to go should he escape. Brilliant. The question, of course, is why? We know they want Jack to fix creepy guy’s tumor ridden spine, but unlike prisoners who have committed a crime and been found guilty, the prisoners of Lost are seemingly not guilty of directly hurting the Others, unless you count self-defense. You have to admit though the Others are incredibly discriminating when it comes to the facts they opt to reveal, as if they somehow have a right to pass judgment…which let’s face it, they might. Either way my guess is that neither side is right or wrong and much like the war we find ourselves engaged in now, both sides have their angle and self-righteousness to fall back on, as was witnessed with the Others realization this week that they haven’t adequately protected their own. From above the operating room the husband of the dying woman could be heard saying, “They did this. They did this.” Binary opposition at its best.

Deep Thunder 10/23

The question I am posing midway through this semester is; why do my classmates seem to be raising the same questions as each other and even, in cases, the next week’s theorist?

Example: After Beaudrillard, we began to question what reality lay behind the signs of the Simulacra. We wondered; what is real? In addition, if there is even one reality. Now we are introduced to Derrida who believes in an outright lack of a stable referent.

Another Example: A curvy curve-busting classmate told me after one class that she thought God is real, not real in a sense of existing in quantifiable matter, but rather, quantifiable influence. Although she is not as well spoken as the theorists for next week (but has a very nice smile), the question will be explored.

At this point, I am torn between three hypotheses for the coincidences.

This phenomenon is Jungian and a ‘sign’ of the presence of collective consciousness.
These are natural progressions in the flow of thought and questioning.
We are being led down and ideological yellow brick road by our instructor.

I suppose I am a -hypothesist- hypothesizer?- and not a theorist (theorist/hypothesist-izer) I will continue to perform my research by reading Marx and other theorists of ideology. Then whatever is next on the syllabus. Questioning ideological motives? Who would have thought.

Steve-O 10/24

Not only did the R.O.G. make Derrida’s text seem comprehendible, I really was ably to connect his theory to more than one of our previous free-thinkers. After the blue book marathon two weeks back, I feel that it is a MUST to incorporate the upcoming authors with “The Trace” of the covered works to that point.
In the explanation of Erasure, we talked about the hegemony making us not see things that are there. This is a great example of dissimulation, which Baudrillard attempts to explain to his reader, “To dissimulate is to pretend not to have what one has” (M 454). I think there is a “visual” or shall I say transparent link from the signifying chain of erasure to dissimulation and further to Foucult and the power of a Panopticon. Foucult states that, “Power should be visible and unverifiable” (C 98). This can be SEEN in the simulacric bank robbery postulated by Baudrillard. The Fake robbery holds greater power due to its indistinguishable characteristic that make it real/visible but unverifiable—real or fake. It would be smart to refresh your memories of Baudrillard’s text, with the mid-term approaching and the difficult reading presenting itself, I found my understanding of The Precession of simulacra to encompass only what was needed for the test. Page 472 (M) starts a discussion entitled End of the panoptic system. “The eye of TV is no longer the source of an absolute gaze, and the ideal of control is no longer that of transparency”….? HMMMMMM. That’s one to read over and over and over again. Crap…Sometimes I get going and I end up confusing myself… “ ‘you no longer watch TV, it is TV that watches you’… a switch from the panoptic mechanism of surveillance…to a system of detterence, in which the distinction between the passive and the active is abolished” (M 472). This is where I think I was going…R.O.G. introduced the idea that even the gaurds could be the ones being controlled in the Panoptic mechanism, so would this reversal of design be the “end of the panoptic system” discussed by Baudrillard? And, this reversal of roles reminds me of the Alterity found within this quasi-“Breakdown of the signifying chain”. There is an ability to experience the “Otherness” which also mimics Poster's concepts that surround the Telephone…the exchangeability of the positions of sender and receiver—inmate and guard—viewer and producer—guard and inmate.


"If the game shakes me or breaks me
I hope it makes me a better man
Take a better stand
Put money in my moms hand
Get my daughter this college plan, so she dont need no man
Stay far from timid
Only make moves when ya hearts in it
And live the phrase skys the limit" The Notorious B.I.G.

One

PetalswiththeWind 10/24/2006 The Crosswords/Roads of Derrida!

Dr. Notorious Rog mentioned one of my favorite movies in class this past Tuesday, Jarhead. Whenever I feel mental anguish and feel that I can’t go on, some of my marine “homies” taught me a phrase to build up my mental strength and endurance, “OO RA!” I think that it is the way to spell it, but it does not even matter. All that matters is the expulsion of sound that resonates through my entire body, what it does to me, how it builds up energy! Words for the military have to be strong; they can not be self defeating, because when in combat all they can think of are words to keep them, their platoon, and their countrymen alive and free! They have to feel the passion to live at all times.

Language is full of possibilities, of the revealed and the undisclosed! The surfaces of language, the words, are only what are heard and said, but not the deep silent message underneath them. Language adds opinionated judgments. All the value added to the thoughts of others mean naught, as long as one does not agree with the intended underlying message when the system is used historically. Just because we agree to use the language of a Patriarchal system does not mean we have to carry and believe the message intended. It is not a fool proof system since Derrida, Saussure, and other great theorists have figured it out. Once you understand the interlocking features of such formulation; we just have to find the exact combination to unlock it. We all have paid enough attention to a specific message in language over and over again, until it has become part of our subconscious. So much so that we think it is a part of us, which is the actual interlocking of the system.

OO RA!

The system of language itself only points to possibilities, not to the definitive or certainty like we all think. Just because someone says some thing with defining limitation does not mean it is true or false, right or wrong, from situation to situation. Because situation to situation varies, and the only time it is defined with certainty is when we allow language to encompass it with its definitions. I’m so over it! OO RA! People defining my lifetime and telling me how to live through the use of language; if we went back to the cave man days where we could not talk or write, no one could tell me how to live my life or what to think, or not think. No imposition of their opinions, unless through physical violence, and even then I would have the right to defend myself!

Derrida states, “Saussure had only to remind us that the play of difference was the functional condition, the condition of possibility, for every sign; and it is itself silent!”
OO RA, Derrida!

The utility of language serves the purpose of only a few, the hegemony in power! The masses using and maintaining this system of language, fulfills the higher purpose for the hegemony, not themselves. The utility of language functions as mechanisms within a system that keeps people under control, under the power, and the influence of the patriarchs. An experience can be broken down to its essential elements, and not be bounded by language itself. Language can transcend an experience to the closest possible reality, but not quite exactly. Not all words can encompass reality entirely (such as Lyotard’s states with reference to the all encompassing metanarratives), that is where the distortion and confusion comes in.
So as the infamous words of Public Enemy states, “Fight the Power! Fight the Power that be!”
OO RA!

PetalswiththeWind Derrida (Pre-Class)

Almost holding my breathe waiting for a moment, not living the moment,
either stuck dwelling in the past, paralyzed from moving on or moving forward…
Awaiting...
The minutes, hours, days, months, years, to pass...
Fast forwarding to the future...
In order for the present to become the past, so we can dwell on it...
Completely missing THE moment...
Get lost in the moment, don’t let time pass you by, before you know it will be time to leave it behind…
“Tick Tock”, says the clock, I hit the snooze button just one more time...
As I hold my breathe waiting for a moment, another one has passed...
Craving a desire which didn’t last because I was wishing pass it...
A missed experienced…
Robbed of emotions...
Just going through the motions…
The tempo of the linear puts a straight jacket on the soul, lost in its ocean of meaninglessness… Broken spirits are bounded to limits.
No winning back lost time.
Mourning, grieving, in vain, losing more time…
Every moment defined, to the inclined, even the sublime.
Defining what ought to be.
Chronological presence marked by society…
We are forever scarred...

The attention a reader places on the apparent misspelling of Derrida’s word “differance” demonstrates how language is merely a tool that the hegemonic power, which we will call the patriarchy, uses to construe their intended message of superiority over the inferiority of the masses. In order to defy language, Derrida creates his own system to infer his own message away from the patriarchal intent. He quaintly states, “this will refer irreducibly to a written text, a text governing my talk, a text that I keep in front of me, that I will read, and toward which I shall have to try to lead your hands and eyes” (122). The words of any language system imply definitive meaning, and the only reason it means anything is because we have agreed upon it. Language is a structured diagram of a hegemonic plan, first to establish power, and then to maintain it. As described previously by Saussure, the langue containing the parole. That is mainly why the majority are always misunderstanding each other, due to the miscommunication of language which interpretations do not belong to self, but of someone else.

Derrida profoundly points out that language is not a concrete substance that can be broken down to essential elements. Language takes you in a circle, back to the underlying message that is overly intended by a specialized system of langue, culturally influenced. Saussure's quote of, "In language there are only differences", resonates through Derrida’s text. A textual example in the “primordial” origin of the patriarchy is if you are not a whore, you are a good little girl controlled through their influence, confining and restricting, what is “right” or “wrong”. Whore is a powerful word that has scarred many women, and it still holds power, through making its intended point; the "secret" reason behind whoever created the word: stud/whore, man/woman.

Ironically, I am left speechless, in paralysis, until I figure out what’s next. For now I take a moment of silence, but all my thoughts still resonate with the sounds of The Patriarchy, there is no escaping it.
Is there?
SOS

sardine -- 10/23 -- the gaze

Are you into Scary? Let’s do Foucault.

That Panopticon is here. And we are living it and agreeing with and aiding it. We are part of it. We could call it the Inquisition, but I have another name for it. Allow me to introduce the New Freedom Initiative:

"The New Freedom Initiative: Fulfilling America's Promise to Americans with Disabilities
'My Administration is committed to tearing down the barriers to equality that face many of the 54 million Americans with disabilities...My New Freedom Initiative will help Americans with disabilities by increasing access to assistive technologies, expanding educational opportunities, increasing the ability of Americans with disabilities to integrate into the workforce, and promoting increased access into daily community life.'
President George W. Bush in the Forward to the New Freedom Initiative" (http://www.hhs.gov/newfreedom/).


However, the “New Freedom Initiative” doesn’t mention that this “New Freedom” was based upon the Texas Medication Algorithm Project (TMAP). This project was funded by the drug companies while Bush was governor of Texas. An algorithm is a flow chart used by clinicians to chart disease and medication. The drug companies funded this project to promote their special medications to be part of the government and insurance companies’ formularies.

Unfortunately, what does this mean for you, me, and the kids of America? It means forced mental health screenings and forced drugging of children and adults. For children, this “New Freedom” means forced mental health screenings for children in grades 0-12, including homeschooled children. ADHD and the new disease du jour, Autism, are among the great money making “diseases” for children. (See “The Autism Dragnet” by Thomas Sowell) Already there are a number of families who have been forced to remove their children from schools because they refuse to be coerced into drugging their children. Many families are coerced (see a list on www.ablechild.org). Parents are finding themselves charged with child abuse and neglect for refusing to medicate their children. These medications include anti-psychotic medications, Schedule II amphetamines, anti-depressants, etc. Scary medications for children. And scary for you if you think they are safe.

The Gaze is upon us and our children. Those in power invent the language, the diagnoses, and the cure. We participate. Those who object are marginalized, labeled, chemically restrained, and institutionalized. Welcome to the Panopticon.

Happy Halloween! Sites to scare you:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/medicating/interviews/breggin.html

http://www.ablechild.org/

“The Autism Dragnet” http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=1029

http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/328/7454/1458

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Medication_Algorithm_Project

Or just go wild and type into Google: New Freedom Initiative forced drugging

RB 10/24

God’s elusiveness in language is, paradoxically, observed through language itself. Logocentricism won’t have it any other way. “Without language, thought is a vague, uncharted nebula” (Ferdinand de Saussure 5). Language, however, is unstable – limited by limitless meanings, each listener creating his or her own meaning by the subsequent words to which he or she uniquely defers in order to create that meaning. Although language falls short of capturing God, we’d be hard-pressed to conceive of conceiving God without language. That’s why even though language falls short, books like The Bible are profound.

Tao Te Ching begins with a sort of disclaimer.

The Tao that can be trodden
is not the enduring and unchanging Tao.
The name that can be named
is not the enduring and unchanging Name. [1]

Tao Te Ching informs the reader up front that even though its purpose is to describe the Tao, the Tao is beyond description. The Tao is limited by the word Tao. What the disclaimer does is directs the reader’s deferment of the text toward language’s trace of the unknown, which ultimately leads back to the Unknown, whose meaning cannot be deferred. The entire text is now under erasure.

The above passage from Tao Te Ching is but one English translation of the original manuscript.

The tao that can be described
is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be spoken
is not the eternal Name. [2]

That Tao Te Ching has been translated many times helps illustrate its own point: the text’s paradoxical nature of being both a necessity to convey its message and an inadequate description of that message.

In another translation of Tao Te Ching, the translator has interpreted Tao not as Name, but as Way.

The Way that can be followed
is not the eternal Way. [3]

“The trace is sheltered and thus dissimulated in these names; it does not appear in the text as the trace ‘itself’” (Jacques Derrida 139). The word Tao creates deferment; Tao, however, is that to which everything eventually defers. What is language if not a search for meaning? In language, I seek how to love those whom I do not love, forgive those whom I have not forgiven, listen to those to whom I do not listen. In language, I seek release from the bondage of my selfishness, release from my apathy toward the suffering of others; I seek transformation into an instrument of peace. When I put these lessons into action, I’m closer to the Ur text than language could ever bring me.

CL 10.24

This weeks class brought up quite a few interesting points for me, most of them about Lost. But I am not going to bother everyone with my newly discovered theories about a crazy island and the Others. I'll do my best to focus on Derrida and what he has to say about Differance.

I found the concept of logocentrism extremely thought provoking. The concept that 'nothing exists outside language' has had me thinking for the last few days. Everything in our lives revolves around language; it is our qualifier for everything in life. It is how we attach emotions, choices, and concepts to everything, EVERYTHING, in our world. When language is confused, which happens quite frequently, there are many problems. This brings me to Derrida's point about concept:

"Every concept is necessarily and essentially inscribed in a chain or a system, within which it refers to another to other concepts, by the systematic play of differences" (pg 127).

This idea is clearly illustrated in the television show "Arrested Development." There is an episode where two of the Bluth brothers, Michael and Gob, are both in love with a Spanish soap opera star. Gob hears her talking to her relative on the phone about being in love with "Harmano," and he thinks it is another man. While it is in fact another man, what neither Gob nor Michael realize is that "Harmono" is spanish means "brother," and the woman is talking about Michael. The two Bluth brothers go on a hunt to find out who she is cheating on Gob with, and they both end up losing her affection in the end.

While this example is a bit trivial, I believe it to be a perfect example of Derrida's concepts about language. This simple confusion evokes and entire chain of events that all have to do with ascribing words to a "chain or a system." These words create conflict over a simple misunderstanding. It makes for brilliant comedy and a great example of logocentrism.

JOH 10/24

Greetings~

Tuesday's session was definitely interesting. Our discussions helped bring the theorists, particularly Derrida, into focus. It was good to get back to our natural rhythm again, get some distance between us and the bluepage marathon.

One concept that became very real for me during and following class was that of the Foucault's panopticon. The idea that observation operates ceaselessly is creepy but understandable, as our present century drives deeper into its voyeuristic tendencies - sinking further into the belly of capitalism and national/homeland security. The principle of power without confirmation is the key in this deal; the key to establishing, maintaining, and exerting power in the twenty-first century.

When entering a new environment as a leader in an alternative education setting, dealing with an at-risk population swelling with corruption, emotional instability, moral malnutrition, and the recurrent threat of violence, perception of power is vital. As an instructor, this power, when unconfirmed, creates a real feeling of security and comfort. This type of power typically lasts hours or days - never weeks or months. Soon the population, be it a classroom or entire wing, learns your true capacity to carry out discipline action on a level that would truly effect them. Then, one must rely upon other devices, other tools that create a perception of leverage.

I believe another form of panopticon in my working environment is achieved through delivery. Though a staff member may not have the authority to carry out disciplinary action, or better, have the power to motivate without the threat of discipline, the rapport they build and the corresponding reputation they develop empowers them to a greater degree than the ability to suspend them for a day, etc. With the proper delivery, a staff member has the ability to have their true power, their position, or staff-identity be maintained with a great deal of ambiguity - where students are unsure about their true title or "job" on campus, they gravitate to the staff member in times of need, and trust them enough to be effectively directed/redirected with limited defensiveness (nearly eliminating argument and/or threat of physical response).

Undoubtedly differing from Foucault’s version, this type of panopticon-like device enables for infiltration into the hearts and minds of kids who find little to trust, and less to care about. Noting all of this, the real KEY to this strategy is sincerity - without which one's panopticon inverts and they are immediately identified as full of shit.

See you next week ...

Bloggrokker (Scott) 10/24

Derrida or Foucault? I can't remember.
Y'know, when the Notorious Dr. R. O. G. spoke of the ways in which the hegemonic superstructure zeroes in on a specific word, a word perceived as culturally negative, and re-processes the word 'til it's, well, if not culturally positive, then culturally not-so-negative, depending upon your POV--the example being the word "patriot," a word that's evolved from meaning tea-dumping anarchists to flag-flyin' ideologues. And let's not forget the current military-industrial "complexification" in brand-tagging the word "patriot," the Patriot missiles we've been freewheelingly lobbing into Baghdad on-and-off since the '91 Gulf WAr--ah, if only for the days when we could see The Light at the End of the Snafu.
Anyway, yes, where was I? Oh yeah, Derrida, had to be Derrida. If it concerns THE WORD, it's gotta be Derrida.
And, as Stephen Colbert announces each evening, AND NOW FOR TONIGHT'S WORD.
And TONIGHT'S WORD is TWO WORDS, hyphenated, no less--SCIENCE-FICTION.
As I see things, the superstructure of the hegemony has re-processed the often-derided, somewhat feared, cultural phenomenon wrapped up in the term SCIENCE-FICTION and turned it into a big-buck, entertainment-based economic spectaco-juggernaut.
Hop into a theoretical time machine, set the controls for atemporal backwarding, and, lo and behold, there's the man who created not only the conceptualized idea of a literary time machine, but the genre of SCIENCE-FICTION itself as we know it, H. G. Wells. Wells, a--don't be too scared, kids, just pull the blankets up around your ears--Socialist. Holy Martian death-machines, Batman, y'know the State Department got its hairs all up in a paranoid sheep-shank when Wells visited the States way back in the '30s, perhaps they even had a G-man follow him around, this potential Red peddling potentially Red ideas rolled up in tales of scientific extrapolations and utopianism.
(And, as an aside, isn't Wells's The Invisible Man the epitome of the postmodern absent center. A technological ghost story of madness and science-gone-awry revolving around a central plot element that just isn't empirically there? Just a thought, a thought perhaps for another blog entry.)
Then there were the Futurians, a group of SCIENCE-FICTION authors that included such future luminaries of the field as Isaac Asimov, Frederik Pohl, and Damon Knight. During the '30s, too, Secret Service agents mistakenly raided and falsely accused these SCIENCE-FICTION writers of printing and mimeographing revolutionary manifestos. Look out, kids, more Commies to Brainwash your Mommies!
Do I really need to say anything regarding Jack Finney writing Invasion of the Body Snatchers in the early '50s? I didn't think so.
Skip up to the late '80s and early '90s, and the hacker busts, wherein the Feds' computer hardware raids saw the SCIENCE-FICTION writers of the cyberpunk mould as potential cyber-agitators--William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Rudy Rucker, John Shirley, and their ilk were seen as radicals ready to crash the hegemony.
(For anyone interested in all of this dizzying info, leaf through Sterling's The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier. It's required enlightenment.)
If the perceived scariness of SCIENCE-FICTION is an unknown variable for the general public, that's 'cuz the hegemonic superstructure has done a bang-up job removing the culturally acceptable elements of SCIENCE-FICTION from SCIENCE-FICTION and, beginning slowly back before '33 when Wells's The Invisible Man got the film treatment, has worked its way up into an ever-accelerating "Age of Blastravaganzas," an age of mega-buck, decibel-endangering, cgi-sugarcoated hyper-cinema meant to lull Joe Moviegoer into the Pyrotechnical Wonderland of the Megaplex Electrical Parade.
(!!!andtheghostsofadornoandhorkheimerstalktheboxoffice!!!)
Gee whiz, didja ever wonder why the blockbusterin'est blockbusters are almost always some bastardized form of SCIENCE-FICTION--Star Wars, Men In Black, The Matrix, Independence Day, X-Men, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, ALIEN, Lord of the Rings, The Terminator, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Armageddon, The Fifth Element, Tron (hey, who put that in here?!?), War of the Worlds, RoboCop, Total Recall, Minority Report, etc., etc.
(Yes, yes, I know, I know, LOTR isn't SCIENCE-FICTION, it's fantasy, but they're often lumped into a singular genre for reasons forever unfathomable and eternally unforgivable, so it'll benefit my argument here.)
Television? There's the Sci-Fi Channel's highest-rated program, the rehashed Battlestar Galactica. Yep, I watch it. I dig it. I also know the hegemonic superstructure wants everyone to know that Habermas-esque "experts" like Matt Rausch or one of those other TV Guide pundits thinks it's the cat's pajamas and, to borrow a term from the NBC Propaganda Mill, it's "Must-See TV."
And the Sci-Fi Channel itself? It's a Corporate Media Ideology of Shot Expectations. Bring back The Outer Limits, guys, the black-and-white one, the old one, the non-sucktacular one. What's the matter? Not enough pyrotechnics and damage-to-decibel ratios for ya?
As for reading SCIENCE-FICTION? I believe the superstructure of the hegemony--the American one, anyway--might ask: Read? Who the hell reads anymore?

Gary 10/27

I knew it before class, but now it's been confirmed. Our society is the "Panopticon". Am I paranoid....or just a realist? Everywhere we go, we aremonitored. Swipe your badge, enter your code, enter your SS#, enter your password, sign on to the computer. Track your events some day and you will be surprised at how much data you leave back on your trail.
Now don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that we should go hide in a lead cased closet. I freely give out all of the information (with the exception of my SS# and my fingerprints at Disney World) on a daily basis. Why am I comfortable with this? Because I have accepted the Panopticon. I know they are out there aiming at me and I freely walk past my cell window everyday. I'm one of those pre-destiny believers too. It was meant to happen, deal with it.
Foucoult says that "power should be visible and unverifiable"(98). How does a Frenchman get such a good insight to our government? The "gaze" exists on many of our faces as we routinely follow the procedures and never ask why. Just enter the code, swipe the badge, give out your information....don't challenge or wonder why, just do it.
I previously worked for a company for eighteen years. Many of my fellow employees had worked there for 25, 35, even 40 years. Some of the procedures and methods of accomplishing everyday tasks were extremely antiquated and counter productive. When I questioned why we operated in this manner, I was given the answer "That's the way it's always been done". The Panopticon was alive and well at this company...don't challenge it because the "power is visible and unverifiable". Oh...that power and the gaze amongst the thousands of faces at this "institution" led them straight to bankruptcy. Get rid of the gaze, question the power, and we'll eliminate the Panopticon. You go first....I'm not sure what's aiming out of that tower.

E.M after class posting from 10-24 class.

Foucault’s “You are being watched” I term it the post 9/11 Panopticon.

Driving home from school immediately after learning of the towers and the Pentagon’s 9/11 attack. My first thought was – crap – now we are going see the Orwellian concept of Big Brother in action. Damn - I hate when I’m right. Privacy is a fallacy

I found this rather thought provoking article by Mark Monmonier – entitled Eleven Ways you are being Watched – he is the author of Spying with Maps: Surveillance Technologies and the Future of Privacy
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/534278.html

From our credit card purchases – to satellite surveillance which allows our government to peek into the American Pie back yard --- who has been nude sun-bathing? This would be an interesting subject to study -- how our society has changed or adapted pre and post 9/11..

I love this quote –
“I would like my books to be a kind of tool-box which others can rummage through to find a tool which they can use however they wish in their own area… I would like the little volume that I want to write on disciplinary systems to be useful to an educator, a warden, a magistrate, a conscientious objector. I don't write for an audience, I write for users, not readers.”
—Michel Foucault (1974), 'Prisons et asiles dans le mécanisme du pouvoir' in Dits et Ecrits, t. II. Paris: Gallimard, 1994, pp. 523-4).
I love this concept – this would fit right into Barthes “minding the gap” you become the active participant to the writer’s text. In Foucault’s text I become the active reader a full contact participant.

In essence Foucault concept that he called “power-knowledge” i.e. the rise of visible power. Example: the terror threat level – who decides to change the color? “They” never specifically say why the level changes. You never know when “they” are going to lower the threat. We are willing participants to this system. Today children--- we have a threat level orange – We ask why? Then our media asks why? – No answer-- which leads to media speculation. Well it could be that some where someplace someone – felt threatened. I saw our threat level rise and fall with the polling returns during our last election. “Wag the dog” thinking. If indeed we are the dog and our tail is being wagged for us – don’t you believe we will become more immune to perceived threats rather than afraid. Then again just when we thought-- all was safe – something happens. This something keeps us exquisitely alert.

I have a friend who lives in D.C. I can’t tell you what she does – or I’d have to kill you. In fact I don’t know what she does—who knows who could be reading this blog? I asked her how she feels living in a place that is in effect-- ground-zero for any sort of terrorist shenanigans. She was very blasé – “you deal” she said.

ginny t. Foucault

"The gaze is alert everywhere." -- Michel Foucault, "Discipline and Punish"
"Big Brother is watching you." -- George Orwell, 1984

Well, well...it looks like someone has been reading their George Orwell, isn't that right, Mr. Foo-coe?

I'd venture to say that Foucault's theory was at least a little bit influenced by George Orwell's infamous, and eerily prophetic, social apocalypse novel 1984. (Or perhaps it's Orwell taking inspiration from Foucault? Derrida says it could happen...)

All I could think of when I read this essay was "Wow, that sounds just like 1984..."

In the world of George Orwell, the Panopticon was all around. "The Party" kept a constant eye on the people living in Oceania via the one-way telescreens that were kept on at all times and saw everything...or did they? The public was constantly reminded that they were being watched, but because they could not observe their captors, they had no way of knowing when and how often they were being inspected. Just like in the Panopticon, this environment of uncertainty bred obedience. Even if the citizens were not being spied on via the telescreens, they were under constant scrutiny from their fellow neighbors and party members. No one was safe from the gaze, not even top party members. In 1984, just as in the Panopticon, power was destabalized from any kind of absolute ruler, and the entire society plowed along, oblivious to the fact that there was no longer anyone at the helm.

So now it's 2006 in America...

...eerily prophetic indeed.

sardine -- pre-10/23 -- derrida

“If I put to death or grant death to what I hate it is not a sacrifice. I must sacrifice what I love. I must come to hate what I love, in the same moment, at the instant of granting death. I must hate and betray my own, that is to say offer the gift of death by means of a sacrifice, not insofar as I hate them, that would be too easy, but insofar as I love them. I must hate them insofar as I love them. Hate wouldn’t be hate if it only hated the hateful, that would be too easy. It must hate and betray what is most loveable. Hate cannot be hate, it can only be the sacrifice of love to love. It is not a matter of hating, betraying by one’s breach of trust, or offering the gift of death to what one doesn’t love” (Derrida, 225).

Um… yes… What? I’ll just sit here in the corner and scrape the gum off my shoe. Maybe Derrida should have written for Hallmark? How would the above seem for a Valentine’s card for one’s beloved?

I can’t deal with Derrida’s hate and love issues. I am having too many tick nightmares. Yes, ticks. My children’s dog is infested with ticks, and she came in the house with at least two hundred of them. I’d like to sacrifice the dog that I now hate and love, but the ticks are the problem. And I am pulling those pests off myself and the children. I am feeling them climbing on me. They look like tiny spiders before they attach. Then they blow up like grapes. They actually pop if you step on them and explode blood.

My children love their dog. Personally, I prefer cats. But now we have new pets, the pests. I hate them. I hate them. I called the bug man. I don’t do pesticides. I hate them too. Rearrange your DNA for eternity. Warp the family tree. Exterminate yourself. My yard was the only one in the neighborhood without the pesticides, and the pests came to us. I called the bug man to deal with the ticks, and he sprayed. And he will have to re-spray in one week when the eggs hatch, or it will begin anew.

I sprayed the dog. I sprayed the yard. I sacrificed the pests, my yard, my children, myself, and my pet. I love them. I hate them. I just pulled two off me and drown them in rubbing alcohol. I am giving them the death.

I give up! Gut me like a goat and sacrifice my carcass to the eternal absent center!

RB, Foucault

“Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!” shouts a man wheeling around a cart piled with dead bodies in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. A patron comes carrying a guy on his shoulders and drops the limp person onto the cart. “I’m not dead!” says the guy who is now lying in the cart. The dead collector says he can’t take people who aren’t dead. “Well,” says the patron, “do us a favor. . . . can you hang around a couple of minutes? He won’t be long.” The guy is nearly dead, and the dead collector won’t be back until Thursday. The dead collector says no, but then whacks the guy in the head, killing him. “Thanks very much,” says the patron. “Not at all,” says the dead collector. “See you on Thursday.”

Convenience wins out over life. It is unclear what the patron’s relationship is to the dead man, but the dead collector has no relation to either man and has little problem killing one of them. This system parodies “the measures to be taken when the plague appeared in a town” (94), the system observed by Michel Foucault in Discipline and Punishment as the basis of modern discipline and power.*

The system relies on surveillance. Surveillance requires no contact between those in power and those whom they control. It is convenient. But the convenience is not without its cost.

Foucault writes that the method of control used during the plague influenced the creation of the panopticon prison, which relies on ambiguity to control prisoners. If the prisoners know they might be being observed, then they’ll behave, so no contact with guards is necessary. As a result, “a real subjection is born mechanically from a fictitious relation” (99). To the people in power, this lack of relationship dehumanizes the people being controlled. And so why not club to death a man if it is convenient?

* Disclaimer: Foucault is French and is probably describing France’s reaction to the plague; Monty Python is British, and England may have reacted differently.

Gary-Foucault

Time to switch gears from De Saussure, Barthes, Adorno etc to the world of Michel Foucault. Why do I feel like my life may exist in a chamber of the "Panopticon". He says that the Panopticon "reverses the principle of the dungeon; or rather of its three functions-to enclose, to deprive of light and to hide-it preserves only the first and eliminates the other two" (97).

In today's society we are not hidden or deprived of light (unless we choose to be), but we are definitely enclosed. We claim to be free, but at the same time our every move is under the watchful eye of our supervisor. All of our decisions and movements are under the control of the "supervisor", similar to the men watching through the windows of the Panopticon.

Our society is divided into specific classes and groups, with each group enclosed in the appropriate section of the Panopticon. Every year class size and the division between the classes increases. We stray further from the foundation of our country as we let the Panopticon supervisor separate us by sex, race, class, wealth, education, medical condition, age, etc. Meanwhile all of our thoughts, feelings and actions are intercepted and analyzed.

I heard a story on the radio today regarding Michael Chertoff, the Director of Homeland Security. It seems that Mr. Chertoff and many of the government officials do not have e-mail accounts. The reason...."e-mail never goes away". The supervisor sees all, but does not participate.....

According to Foucalt, "the Panopticon [...] must be understood as a generalizable model of functioning; a way of defining power relations in terms of the everyday life of men" (99). The Panopticon fits our country like a glove. We exist in our designated area of the Panopticon, separated into our class structure, welcoming the light with open arms, but somewhere, our "supervisor" is monitoring our every move.

Captain PMS, Faucault

Captain’s Blog Stardate 10/24

I was going to write about Derrida but then I realized I don’t understand anything he is saying so my blog would be terribly unenlightening. So Foucault then.

I find Foucault’s theory about the confession of sexuality interesting. I remember when reality television first became a big thing with the premiere of The Real World. For the first two seasons of that show the big revelations seemed to revolve primarily about two subjects, race and sex. It came out that certain characters were gay or that people in the house had threesomes and everyone was fascinated. Now it seems those confessions are a dime a dozen, to use an expression that is as overplayed as the sexual confessions the roommates make to the camera in their private rooms. It seems like there isn’t anything shocking left for these people to say. We have become so desensitized to sexual confession that our society uses it as an excuse for our other peccadilloes. If anything happens to someone famous now we immediately discover they were molested as a child. If a celebrity relationship breaks up it is due to an affair or so-called sexual addiction. Public sexual confession has become a good source of entertainment in the last few years but is now one so overplayed that it has lost its scandalous tones. Perhaps we will finally see a decline in all this talk so we can all enjoy a really good piece of sexual gossip when we hear one instead of it just being yesterday’s news.

Mony-Foucault Pre-Class

“The Society that emerged …did not put into operation entire machinery for producing true discourses concerning it. Not only did it speak of sex and compel everyone to do so; it also set out to formulate the uniform truth of sex. As if it suspected sex of harboring a fundamental secret. As if it needed the production of the truth…as if it were essential that it be put in an ordered system of truth.”

Sexuality in modern society is as ubiquitous as terrorism. Actually, I am sure that homeland security has already drawn up a correlation between the two, since sex is so “evil and deviant” it has to be related to terrorism. I agree with Foucault, discourse on sexuality was only constructed as a means of social control. Sexuality is a part of our essence, for sexuality is the alpha and omega of life. Without control over sexuality, the individuals with the power could soon find themselves out numbered. And God forbid that the “sexually liberated” come into power, for then morals would cease to exist.

At the time this article was written, the height of “free-love” and “sexual liberation” were coming to their end. Presently, we have new terms that can be applied to Foucault’s “confession” we now have: coming out of the closet, sex addicts support groups, self proclaimed chastity and re-virginity, psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, psychiatry, psychology, and all those other mental health fields that control our sexuality. We have become a society so fixated on trying to control sexuality that we have lost sight of the natural beauty associated with it. Sexuality is not repressed and never has been. It has just been regulated, and I say it is time to have a sexual “coming out party” for all.

Deep Thunder- Foucault

“The plague-stricken town, traversed throughout with hierarchy, surveillance, observation, writing; the town immobilized by the functioning of an extensive power that bears in a distinct way over all individual bodies- this is the Utopia of a perfectly governed city” - Michel Foucault

As I remember; Utopia was no Utopia. But I suppose this strict governing resembles Moore’s Utopia in its homogenization of the people.
We live in a plague-stricken town. Since the plague of “terrorism” has hit the United Stated, our officials have used fear to strip us of freedoms. We are increasingly surveilled and observed. I am a disgusted by how our current plague has been exploited by those in power in order to flex their hierarchy, and to exploit the people. In the name of preserving freedom we allow our freedoms to be stripped away. While we stand up and shout, “Bin-Laden, you will not take our freedom and democracy”, we allow those same ideals of liberty and freedom to be stripped instead by our own leaders. I am told as a citizen that I should have no problem exposing my bank accounts, library records, internet searches, cell phone calls, to “the authorities” if I have nothing to hide. This is homogenization by the hegemony. Under surveillance, we will eventually all act the same; we will act as we are expected to act, like reality TV. While our officials tout the US as Utopia and protect us against the “plague” of “terrorism” with acts like the Patriot Act, I shall continue to remind everyone I know to beware; even Utopia was no Utopia.

E.M. Pre Class Post 10/23

"the fragment of darkness that we each carry within us"- Foucault or is it Moulder at the beginning of X-files. Warning us that we might wake up and become flesh eating monsters by lunch time. I believe that Foucault might have been a favorite theorist of a few of the X-files writers. Hmmm what gets people to watch TV night after night - sex and violence is good. Foucault is a rather morbid writer. Not that Jenkins was particulary joyful. He did manage to interject the more Marxist view on what propels man. Money, stuff, things - being scared. I believe that Jenkins and Foucault marry up quite well. One would mind the till the other would think of Frudian things to say about our deepest darkest urges. Sex, drugs and rock and roll. I don't think that sex today has the full on naughy-ness it once had. It is as though it has now graduated to a Olympic sport. And the East German Judge... in my humble view Foucalt's view of sex is perhaps a bit out dated. Or perhaps I just don't go to enough fettish clubs. Or maybe Foucault went to Amsterdam to do his research. Or maybe I think to much. Now that I've done all this reading these writers are starting to make sense to me.

Steve-OH Derrida (e.g. Graphic Intervention) ?

Lets start off with a little Tmesis: What is the “intraf#$%*@#metaphysical effect of difference?”(C 136) The only comforting feeling I encountered while reading Derrida was when I came across a term or phrase from one of our previous scholars, if you would be kind enough to describe them as such…to me these guys could use there minds in the search of a more concrete or lasting endeavor. The further Postmodern Theory goes the less pertinence I find in the text, and this takes me back to Derrida and his notion of the defference…err…differance of differences (with an E...in case you were listening to an audio essay which I’m sure will find its way onto Itunes very soon). What about the difference within and between other differences before we get to the differance...or the differances between differances (once again let me clarify with an A for all our auditory learners). Couldn’t we go on and on with the concept of Differance (With an A)? Its like taking a picture of yourself standing in between two mirrors…it looks as if the image can go on forever…or of watching a video of someone watching a video of someone watching a video…where does it end…Should it end?

I think it is important to look at the imagery of a pyramid…and ask yourself what was the purpose of these enormous above ground tombs…? I still believe that there is a mystery surrounding the purpose and use of these great structures, yet Derrida refers to them as if their “Being” is something tangible to use in an analogy of difference (with an E).

I think if you use the idea of “the play [jeu] of difference” (120) and think of Barthes notion of Jouissance, it can be inferred that this DifferAnce is the feeling found in the gap of explicit and implicit...in the silence of writing an A instead of an E….in this “play of difference” (122).

Another concept found in the essay is MULTIVALENCE:

Differance can refer to the whole complex of its meaning at once, for it is immediately and irreducibly multivalent…(125).

Think of differAnce as a transparent layer coating a multivalent structure…the air we breathe….the light we see…and the invisibility of the air and light simultaneously… “the presence in its absence” (125).

Derrida also questions “the authority of presence or its simple symmetrical contrary, absence or lack”(126). This idea reminds me of Bejamin and his notion of the presence of the original being prerequisite…So in Derrida’s view, The presence of difference is prerequisite to the presence of differAnce or its lack thereof?

I hope this makes a little sense…but sorry if I confused anyone…I hope there is some clarification of the difference of my interpratation and the proper understanding of this text during class.

"I Hate a liar more than I hate thief
A thief is only after my salary a liar is after my reality" 50 Cent

ONE

ix. Derrida

Wow. This is what we get when we let our minds “atrophy” (I’d personally call it resting) for an entire week without mind warping readings. Man, I must say that I could feel the wrinkles forming massive fissures in my gray matter as I read Derrida’s ‘DifferAnce.’

I would venture to say that I believe I mostly “got it,’ but Derrida, avoids defining “difference positively (difference is…)” so then there is no [it] to be gotten (C 118). Inversely, Derrida also avoids practicing “apophatic or negative theology” so there is also no [it] to not get. Since differAnce is outside of our system of language—this is also true to the system of Microsoft Word, since it keeps automatically ‘fixing’ my grammatical error from an a to an e I’ve had to spell it with a capital A—how can we get/not get it. Furthermore, my writing of this blog within the structures of Saussure’s langue makes it impossible to clarify it to any degree better than what Derrida himself did. The only way for me to somewhat clarify differAnce in a different, spatially speaking, way is to suggest another system of structure as a point of reference and use it as an example: our physical 3 dimensional world.

If anyone has read or watched Sagan’s Cosmos this “concept” will be familiar. Pretend that beings exist solely in a physical 2-dimensional world. They can only move up, down, left, and right along this plane (what we consider the x and y axes) but they cannot move on the z-axis (towards or away from you, the reader). These beings in this physical 2-dimensional world cannot conceive how a physical 3-dimensional “universe” would be. Now we move on to the next level. If we can move in the x, y, and z-axis, what we believe to be “every” direction, can we even imagine/conceive/fathom of an overarching physical 4th dimension that is both a part of, and apart from the 3 and 2 dimensional worlds we have currently talked about? This idea/non-idea of the physical 4th dimension is, I believe, not incongruent with the “not a word nor a concept” differAnce.

CL Foucault

Oh good Lord. Where to begin? I guess I'll just dive right in with some of my favorite lines from Foucault. To begin with:

:Thus sex gradually became an object of great suspicion; the general and disquieting meaning that pervades out conduct and our existence, in spite of ourselves; the point of weakness where evil portens reach through to us; the fragment of darkness that we each carry within us: a general signification, a universal secret, on ominpresent cause, a fear that never ends" (pg 105).

Well, I, for one, agree. Sex is shrouded in mystery- atleast in our Western culture. Why sex may be everytwhere- television, magazines, billboards, walking down the street in minskirts- there is still the mystery of it. What is it about sex that makes it "mean" so much. Does sex reveal us for who we truly are? For what our deepest desries really are? Are people just afraid to truly know themselves, and more that just that, afraid of what they may discover about themselves? Foucault goes on to say:

"And so, in this 'question' of sex...two processes emerge, the one always conditioning the other: we demand that sex speak the truth (but, since it is the secret and is oblivisous to its own nature, we reserve for ourselves the function of telling the truth of tis truth, revealed and deciphered at last), and we demand that is tell us out truth, or rather, the deeply buried truth of that truth about ourselves wich we think we possess in our immediate consciousness" (pg 105).

That's a whole lot of truth. So, do we? I know that people use sex as a way to measure their reltionships with others. Some use it as a meter of popularity, others use it as a way to express their emotions towards someone they care about. But the question I am asking is this, why can sex not just simply be sex? An act between two indivduals who do what humans have been doing since the beginning of time. Does everything we do as people have to be shrouded in mystery, and therefore, essentially, a question? I for one do not believe that everything we do, sexually or otherwise, reveals our inner-most desries. Sometimes people just get drunk.

Bloggrokker (Scott) Foucault

Postmodernity and its Discontents--a sociocultural malady from the future? If so, I'm afraid the future is here, and it's been here for some time.
Foucault, conjuring the uber-utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham, told me so.
Writing of Bentham's idea of the panopticon, an uber-utilitarian prison system consisting of a manned central tower surrounded by a concentric outlay of cells, Foucault claims this system ensures visibilty for enforcement in the tower and unverifiability of visibility for the celled inmates: "Visible: the inmate will constantly have before his eyes the tall outline of the central tower from which he is spied upon. Unverifiable: the inmate must never know whether he is being looked at at any one moment, but he must be sure that he may always be so."
This all seems peachy and about as utopian as prison systems are gonna get.
It also appears Bentham's panopticon is here--it's here, all right, in the shape of the current media landscape, a media landscape turned prison system.
It cannot be argued--the media is the image and the image is the prison; we are all slaves, prisoners, inmates to the image--the cenral tower standing as metaphor for the spectacle we crave. Methinks Baudrillard might shoot this a Fonzie-esque thumbs up.
Then again, he might not. He might shoot me the bird.
Things might be the other way around, things might be anti-Baudrillardian. Might we rather be the guards in the watchtower--presumably wielding a remote control rather than a Kalashnikov--standing tall over a field of soothing, medicating images for our perusal?
I don't know if I can answer this here. I can say something about Bentham's panopticon being symptomatic of something called a "retrofuturistic semiovirus."
Allow me to drop a theorist we're not gonna read this term, but a theorist I read for a paper I did in another class. Istvan Csicsery-Ronay coined the term "retrofuturistic semiovirus" for a future concept or sign that manifests itself in the past, although you've got to get to the future to realize the concept as "futuristic." Got it? Good.
Seeing the panopticon in this light, seeing it as "retrofuturistically semioviral," Bentham's prison system is a mass signifier for the current prevalence of camera-phones, traffic-cams, and reality tv programs where everybody's got star-power, everyone's got unverifiable potential as the star attraction as everyone's highly visible.
Forget Coke. We're not Generation Next. We're Generation Funt. It's a Candid Camera world, after all.
An old theme tune went with it. What . . . oh yeah, I remember.
WHEN IT'S LEAST EXPECTED--YOU'RE ELECTED,
(Rodney King gettin' hell beat outta 'im)
YOU'RE THE STAR TODAY . . .
(George Bush's seasickness at a Japanese banquet)
SMILE!
(JFK's head turnin' to a Jell-O shot gone terribly wrong)
YOU'RE ON CANDID CAMERA!!
(Thai tsunamis)
WITH A HOCUS POCUS--YOU'RE IN FOCUS,
("When Animals Attack")
IT'S YOU'RE LUCKY DAY . . .
(jetliners hittin' skyscrapers)
SMILE!
(a Chinese student before a tank in Tiannenmen Square)
YOU'RE ON CANDID CAMERA!!
What to do, what to do with the masses of po-mo discomntents? Lock 'em up and feed 'em warm, fuzzy, colorful, hi-def, scary but distant and highly repeatable images straight from a watchtower shaped like a DirecTV dish.