Haven't seen a post on this tribe since joining - thought I would try and get something going. Bit of a rant, but I need a distraction.
An essential component of 'technologies of normalization' is the key role they play in the systematic creation, classification, and control of social ‘anomalies’. The advance of bio-power in the nineteenth century is in fact contemporary with the appearance and proliferation of the modern categories of anomaly – of deviants. A web of objective codification which makes possible the ‘measurement of overall phenomena, the description of groups, the characterisation of collective facts..." (D&P:190). It is interesting how the codification of social anomaly - the making or labelling of a kind of deviant or deviance - can have the incidental affect of creating a unified group, a group (or classification)-for-itself. The 'subject' as both known and knowing can re-present and resist the classification of them as a 'kind' of person - thus, “every power relationship implies, at least in potential, a strategy of struggle.” But the unfortunate(?) upshot of this counter discourse is that it in turn can re-create a political violence, a counter normalisation which is nontheless a discourse - a forced polemic of sorts. In other words, the creating of a codified or labelling 'other' can entail a counter creation - like the embracing of a formally derogatory term like 'fag' or 'nigger' and liberating the label with pribe, recasting the discourse - that resists the knowledge(power) or symbolic violence entangled with that classification from above. This act of resistance in time can create an equally debiliating (counter) discourse that starts off as liberating but later becomes something that the subject again feels constrained by. Does this imply that there is only discursive formations or presentations of the self/subject? Can we liberate ourselves from the tyranny of a normalizing gaze? is there a pre-discursive vision that people can have of themselves or others, unconstrained by the multiplicity of knowledge(s) about us a kinds of people?
An essential component of 'technologies of normalization' is the key role they play in the systematic creation, classification, and control of social ‘anomalies’. The advance of bio-power in the nineteenth century is in fact contemporary with the appearance and proliferation of the modern categories of anomaly – of deviants. A web of objective codification which makes possible the ‘measurement of overall phenomena, the description of groups, the characterisation of collective facts..." (D&P:190). It is interesting how the codification of social anomaly - the making or labelling of a kind of deviant or deviance - can have the incidental affect of creating a unified group, a group (or classification)-for-itself. The 'subject' as both known and knowing can re-present and resist the classification of them as a 'kind' of person - thus, “every power relationship implies, at least in potential, a strategy of struggle.” But the unfortunate(?) upshot of this counter discourse is that it in turn can re-create a political violence, a counter normalisation which is nontheless a discourse - a forced polemic of sorts. In other words, the creating of a codified or labelling 'other' can entail a counter creation - like the embracing of a formally derogatory term like 'fag' or 'nigger' and liberating the label with pribe, recasting the discourse - that resists the knowledge(power) or symbolic violence entangled with that classification from above. This act of resistance in time can create an equally debiliating (counter) discourse that starts off as liberating but later becomes something that the subject again feels constrained by. Does this imply that there is only discursive formations or presentations of the self/subject? Can we liberate ourselves from the tyranny of a normalizing gaze? is there a pre-discursive vision that people can have of themselves or others, unconstrained by the multiplicity of knowledge(s) about us a kinds of people?
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Re: Knowledge of the self.
Wed, July 12, 2006 - 1:08 AMI too have wondered if indeed this tribe is even alive - and now, and now.....................I am not a stupid person and even as an undergraduate student ihave some familiarity with adacemicese...................never the less as much as I am interested in the topic you present I am forced to admit it is a little like reading french - that is - I can deduce your jist but only with effort.
I will say however that liberation is always possible. It's the mechanics of it that interest me, more than the question of whether it is possible or not (I'm an optimist).
Justin, do you have personal resonance with this theme? You say you need a distraction, is it by anychance a distraction needed from a situation alluded to in your 'rant?' Just asking.
Briar
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Re: Knowledge of the self.
Wed, July 12, 2006 - 2:15 AMI apologise if the topic is a little blurry - but if you get the jist then that is fine.
I think that this theme could personally resonate with anyone that is exposed to different types of knowledge about what is normal or ideal and how that can affect our vision of ourselves and others. I think that most of us situate ourselves against different discourses about types of humans, kinds of action and behaviour, of temperament or tendency, kinds of emotions, and kinds of experience. These categories of knowledge about 'us' influence us at a deeply personal level. We aspire to being some things, and try not to be like others. This is a reading of Foucault that can be quite bleak and echos many other philosophers and religious or spiritual views.
(I feel another rant coming on)
A personal example can be the presentations of what it means to me a young woman in our society. As the father of a young girl I am very attentive to the way woman are portrayed in the media and how this is taken up by young woman. The sexualisation of woman and the subjective sense of liberation by flaunting themselves as sexual beings is precarious terrain. I personally think that the diverse visions and roles that can/should be open of females that femanism has brought to light can be so quickly undone by a return to over-sexualising the female as an object. Yet even this position that I am forwarding can sound like a polemic and be mistaken to deny woman sexual expression. My point is that people should be able to express themselves in many diverse ways that are 'true to themselves' unrestrained by prevailing discourses of what a young woman should be or look like. The basic theme of my question was: do people see this as possible? Can we view 'true' self? Foucault does not leave me feeling like there is anything other than competing discursive formations (claims to truth). But that is why I don't identify as a Foucauldian. -
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Unsu...
Re: Knowledge of the self.
Sun, July 30, 2006 - 7:50 AMDear Justin,
I agree that Foucault is at times (more than) a little vague. I have wondered about the same question as you have: if we human beings are formed by culturally/psychologically/transgenerationally binary positions, then how are we to 'de-center' ourselves and where would that leave us? I've had the same question while reading Braidotti. Haven't found an answer yet, but slowly questioning myself if I really do need an answer to this question. It is also sort of a want to deny the fact/possibility that we human beings are so immensely related to 'the other' and influenced by the 'other'...isn't it?
Did you have more thoughts while reading Foucault? I'd be interested since I myself too had/have find Foucault often a very difficult guy =) (and also very interesting!).
Cin
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Re: Knowledge of the self.
Sun, July 30, 2006 - 11:56 PMthanks justin to keep the tribe rolling.
i've been battling the Communist government here in China the past few months so the last thing i wanted to do is to alert the State Police about our secert tribe.
If there's ANY country whose citizens need to be liberated from Foucault's Panopt-Prison, it is definitely China (or any other communist state where the secret police reigns). It's not as bad as before so long as i don't do anything suspicious.
Anyways, i'll start posting more once i clear my head from all the foreign words stuck in my brain.
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eat my syllojizz
Fri, March 9, 2007 - 4:55 PM"In other words, the creating of a codified or labelling 'other' can entail a counter creation - like the embracing of a formally derogatory term like 'fag' or 'nigger' and liberating the label with pribe, recasting the discourse - that resists the knowledge(power) or symbolic violence entangled with that classification from above. This act of resistance in time can create an equally debiliating (counter) discourse that starts off as liberating but later becomes something that the subject again feels constrained by. Does this imply that there is only discursive formations or presentations of the self/subject? Can we liberate ourselves from the tyranny of a normalizing gaze? is there a pre-discursive vision that people can have of themselves or others, unconstrained by the multiplicity of knowledge(s) about us a kinds of people?"
You seem to be making an awkward jump from discussion of discourses that define kinds of individuals (ex: fag, niggers) to asking whether individuals themselves have a pre-discursive identity. In my opinion, if the question of "are there pre-discursive identities" is posed with regard to groups defined according to such a discourse then it is tautological. One cannot take on a group identity without an actual group to attatch it to as well as the means to do so, that is to say, the codification that allows multiple individuals to adopt it. The question of "are there pre-discursive identities" with regard to individuals is not addressed in Foucault's work (as far as I know). I think that the anxiety the question of the relationship between ones "internal" and "external" self stems from "Western" folk-theories and historical philosophies of Being and is especially intensified by "Individuality" as an "American value" as well as the fragmentation and multiplications of ethnic and cultural identities that followed globalization/postmodernism/whatever. The fact that there are discourses that endlessly debate the relationship between the narrative of one's memories of existing and the setting in which these memories take place is probably best observed in our own urges to discuss this topic in this very thread! Yup, I just can't help plunging into the black hole of existentialism when I say that, if you can get over the fact that Heidegger was a fucking Nazi, "Being and TIme" probably offers some pretty good answers to your questions.
