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Panopticon's Subject Index Pp
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Panopticon's Subject Index Pp
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Panopticon
Pastiche and Irony
Periodization
Phenomenology
Phonocentrism
Postcolonial theory
Milton's Paradise Lost, with its ambiguities and uncertainties, remains a clarion call for free expression even while it recognizes the possible costs to the individual of such freedom. Satan, ironically, the poem's tragic hero, embodies the proud freedom and independence of the individual who necessarily must suffer for having rebelled against the "just aristocracy of virtue under God." (Don M. Wolfe, Milton in the Puritan Revolution, New York: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1941, 246). Still, as Satan decides: "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven." See John Milton, Paradise Lost, bk. 2. Reprinted in Great Books of the Western World (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1955).
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See also Foucault, the Panopticon and Power:
~~k.i.s.s.~~
So What Is It?
The Panopticon was a 19th century prison design where people knew they were
being watched at all times. It was an architectural design which instilled
social discipline on the prisoners. Foucault
used it as a metaphor to describe how people internalize social disciple
on themselves because they are always under surveillance.
More information: a) Proposed originally by Jeremy Bentham in early
19th-century England, the panopticon was a prison design that respresented
an architectural system of social discipline which could be applied not
only to prisons but also asylums, factories, etc. Individuals would be kept
isolated in rings of individual cells, all of which would be observable
from a central observation tower. These individuals, who could not see their
observers, had to assume they were under observation at all times. Under
such circumstances they would have to discipline themselves to follow the
institution's rules at all times.
b) Foucault used the panopticon as a metaphor to describe the modern disciplinary power apparatus based on isolation, individuation, and supervision, i.e., the way people police themselves because they feel they are always being watched and therefore have to act properly to prevent punishment -- but watched by whom? is a cental question. Not the state, says Foucault - that's a Marxist argument; remember, Foucault is a poststructuralist thinker.
c) So who's opressing whom? Where's the power? Foucault argues that people exercise power over other people; everyone has a little power; "power networks" form which control everybody.
d) This unsatisfactory answer infuriated Marxists and most other thinkers.
See Foucault, Discipline
and Punish, pp. 195-228.
12/97
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Periodization
- ascription of certain characteristics to a certain historical, cultural,
or political frame, e.g., decadeism (certain feelings or ideas associated
with the 1950s, 1960s-ness, etc.), however there are no clear boundaries between
cultural eras -- decades and other clearly defined periods are jusy handy
mental pigeonholes (or bookmarks) which people use to set off periods of history
in their heads.
The same thing holds
true when we try to assign tidy dates to social/cultural/political periods.
For example, when did the medieval period end and "modern" Europe
really begin? 1500? 1648? 1848? Or when did the Second World War begin?
1937? 1939? 1941? 1919 even? (These dates have all been suggested by historians.)
Has the modern period even ended? If so, when? (Charles
Jencks supposedly has an answer to this, if you're interested -- see
the Modern architecture entry.) And so on and
so forth. Of course none of these have easy answers. But they make you think
about your preconceptions and cultural prejudices.
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PHENOMENOLOGY
The study of
phenomena, like consciousness, experience, etc.
More to come . . .
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"Phonocentrism"
- being obsessed with the voice. Traditional western philosophy is
phoncentric, the voice proves what it is saying by virtue of the fact that
it is spoken, immediate (the "inner voice").
See also Logocentrism.
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Post-colonial
studies is a literary movement, emerging mostly from within English departments
in the United States and elsewhere, that attempts to describe and understand
the experience of colonized peoples -- before and after colonization -- by
an examination of texts: books, images, movies, advertising, and so on.
Currently under construction,
being prepared as a Special Topics section.
11/97
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POSTFORDISM
Criteria:
1) Business switch from
industry to service (e.g., 2/3 of world ships once built in Glasgow, Scotland;
now Glasgow tries to be a cultral center).
2) New patterns of industrial distribution (e.g., computers are made all
over not just near IBM headquarters).
3) Intensifying globalization alters sense of space and time; decisions
are made faster. ("space/time" compression) this is influenced
by media as well as economic situation).
4) Weakened power of trade unions, high unemployment, "classification"
- less secure jobs, increase in low-paid jobs, localization of wage bargaining,
women are being brought in more as low-paid part- time workers.
5) Contemporary capital is hypermobile and hyperflexible
(see Kevin Robins), nothing is forever, speed of capital leads to "deterritorialization"
- no connection between and area and where things are made (eg. Glasgow).
6) Many theorists thought post-Fordism would
lead to more local, almost medieval forms of production. This has not happened,
at least not yet:
a) global capital floats all over the world, states often loose control
(e.g., Black Wednesday).
b) fewer and fewer people control more and more production.
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POSTMODERNISM
** There are still
elements of modernism in certain fields but superimposed on that is an element
of postmodernism. Various countries & cultural fields (eg art, architecture,
music) develop at different speeds.**
II.
Postmodernity: Economic
Foundations And Context. Postmodern prose: Elle,
March 1993 -- uses language robbed from its real meaning; for example, you
don't really become a "waif" or a "bohemian" or a "new
sophisticated bag lady"; signifiers do not mean what they appear to
mean; have been split off from their signifieds.
See also:
k.i.s.s.
I.
Perhaps one of the best ways of understanding postmodernism and its predecessor,
modernism, is to look at examples of how these
concepts have affected different areas of our culture, arts, sciences, and
so on. For a brief outline of how this has happened, click here to check
out Modernism and Postmodernism: Some Symptoms & Useful
Distinctions (part of this site's new media literacy
project). (5/98)
Postmodernism, characteristics of:
1) Mediatization: media messages only speak about
signs, not about what they mean.
2) Hyperreality (Baudrillard's term)
3) Textualization.
4) Style over substance.
5) Irony.
6) Pastiche.
7) McLuhan's "Global village", combining
and merging cultures.
8) Depthlessness.
9) Confusion of time and space.
a) Move away from Fordism.
b) Capitalist crisis of the 1970s leads to cultural invasion of society.
(e.g., eating, housing, furniture, etc. all become part of culture)
c) Whole new parts of culture become commodified for capitalism to survive
in the post-Fordist era.
d) Negative critics of capitalism in culture (e.g., Jameson)
argue that commodification replaces other areas of life like politics and
art.
e) If there is a link between cultural and economic change, we need to understand
those economic changes.
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POSTSTRUCTURALISM
I. II. a) Foucault takes apart/deconstructs
systems (e.g., psychology and sociology) and asks how these disciplines
have imposed there own needs on how we look at the world; said it's better
to look at the little bits over the big picture (look at one prison instead
of society as a whole). III. These aspects of postmodernity
contribute to and are further influenced by a growing representation crisis
(see also mediatization).
IV. V. VI.
(Also due for
a major upgrade in the near future. DB)
To poststructuralists, such as Derrida
and Foucault (as well as whole generations of Existentialists)
the big problem with traditional Western philospophy is its insistence on
looking for ultimate truth.
1.) Nietzsche was arguably the first to begin to
dispute this. He argued that getting a handle on truth/reality is always difficult
(who's truth are we dealing with? for example). Conceptions of "truth"
are invariably linked to power.
2.) Foucault, Derrida and Lyotard were very influenced
by Nietzsche's questioning of truth.
What do Lacan, Derrida, and Foucault have in common that makes then poststructuralist?
b) Derrida deconstructs language and Western
philosophy. When language tries to deal with society as a whole, signifiers
slide into other signifiers without reaching a signified; only reach meaning
when working on a small level.
c) Lacan (most difficult to understand) decenters the self; says self is
constructed in language. Lacan decenters the source of knowledge and assumptions
of Western thought by destabilizing self.
How does poststructuralism depart from structuralism
and how is poststucturalism an underlying basis for postmodernism?
Poststructuralism radicalized the ideas of power (Foucault), knowledge and
meaning (Derrida), and self (Lacan).
Poststructuralist theory emphasizes the following:
a.) It transforms ideas about self, knowledge, meaning and power.
b.) Political fragmentation.
c.) General atomization.
d.) Disillusion.
e.) Nuclear/ecological future.
f.) The notion of self and identity; searching for an image (e.g., "going
ethnic").
Poststructuralism and structuralism have some things in common:
1) Both concepts, in their own ways, made attacks on the concept of the
human subject (self).
a) Philosophers from the Greeks to Nietzsche thought of the self as a free,
conscious, aware, autonomous center.
b) Structuralists (maybe beginning with Marx)
began to attack this idea; as a product of systems, the self is undermined.
2) Both concepts examine idea of meaning. Structuralism does this with semiotics;
poststructuralism takes semiotics further to critique meaning.
Poststructuralism is a critique of:
1) the stable sign.
2) the human subject.
3) identity.
4) truth.
Extreme poststructuralism says there is "nothing outside the text"
(e.g., Baudrillard claiming the Gulf War didn't happen); but poststructuralism
sometimes seems more extreme than it is.
Prominent poststructuralist thinkers include:
1.) Derrida, prominent deconstructionist (1930 - ) Language/knowledge &
meaning.
2.) Foucault, prominent deconstructionist (1926 - 1984) Power/prison/history.
3.) Both were heavily influenced by Lacan, deconstructionist (1908 - ).
All three are interrelated in Paris and were affected by poststructuralist
thought.
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POWER
Power & Foucault.
1) Foucault took the asylum as a metaphor for the way the modern state incarcerates
us and inflicts surrveillance and control over us.
2) The mechanisms of power that exist in modern institutions (asylums, barracks,
schools, prisons, hospitals, universities) could be applied to society as
a whole; they are all ways in which power can replicate itself.
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In cultural theory terms, this is Marshall McLuhan's conception of broadcast media (and, by extension, the Internet) as extensions of our brains. Just as literal prostheses (i.e., the usual dictionary definition) are mechanical extensions of our bodies (mechanical arms, legs, etc.), so the communication network is a figurative prosthesis that acts as an extension of the nervous system. Now that the electronic communication has spread around the world, so has our neural network. "Television has become our eyes, the telephone our mouths and ears; our brains are the interchange for a nervous system that stretches across the whole world" (Woolley, 125).
A lot of people get
confused with prosthesis as it's used in this context, getting it confused
with terms like "tool". So how is "prosthesis" different
from a "tool", and how does the former term help us to understand
the new elctronic environment? Well, I would argue that the word "tool"
has become too closely identified with a physical object (a hammer, computer,
etc.) while "prosthesis" can be adapted (in its figurative sense)
to describe the function of communicating -- something which the
brain helps us to do, and which can be extended by communications media.
Thinking of it is a function instead of an object is useful because, in
our (well, at least my) primarily Western orientation to the world
we tend to think too objectively (as in terms of tools, which are
not actually part of us) instead of subjectively (as in terms of
prostheses, which are).
11/97
See also:
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PSYCHOANALYSIS
The root of most
of our modern conceptions of the nature of the self, Freudian
psychoanalysis provides a base from which we can understand how our "self"
is constructed, and from there gives us some clues about how that self is
being affected by the emerging age of computers and new media.
The primary purpose
of psychoanalysis is to explore the unconscious and figure out what's wrong.
"The subject of Freud is most often encountered
in states of extreme alienation. Driven by compulsions over which it has
little or no control, haunted by repressed desires, shaped by traumatic
experiences that it can neither fully recall nor clearly articulate, the
self as Freud depicts it is not bound up with secure possession but with
instability and loss. Such articulation of identity as exists occurs in
states of self-abandonment -- in dreams and parapaxes -- and the self seems
lost not only to others but to the cunning representations of others within
the self" (Greenblatt 134).
If the historical impact
of Freud "is bound up with a sustained . . . assault on the optimistic
assumption of a centered, imperial self, the network of psychoanalytic scandals
-- the unconcious, repression, infantile sexuality, primary process -- nevertheless
confirms at least the romantic assumtion behind the discredited optimism:
the faith that each child is the father of the man and that one's days are
bound each to each in biological necessity. This necessity secures the continuity
of the subject, no matter how self-divided or dispersed . . ." (Greenblatt
134).
According to Greenblatt
(142) psychoanalysis can become relevant to historical subjects (e.g. psychologically
deep readings of Renaissance texts) only when it "historicizes its
own procedures." There are signs of this historicizing process taking
place, "most radically in the school of Hegelian psychoanalysis associated
with the work of Jacques Lacan, where identity
is always revealed to be the identity of another, always registered . .
. in language" (Greenblatt 142).
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Mar. 5, 1999