The Dialogue Between Different Powers

I have taken another course about politics in China and when reading Foucault, another person came into my mind. That is Dennis Wrong. Both of them have a deep discussion about power so now I would like to make a small comparison between their thoughts. Maybe through this kind of comparison, we can have a clearer idea about their views.

√ The meaning of power

Foucault has a very interesting concept about power. He thinks that power is neither a system nor a structure. People cannot born with that. It is a name which is given to complex circumstance.

Wrong defines it as an ability of someone to have an expected influence on others.

I think Wrong’s definition is easy to understand but Foucault’s not. If anyone can explain it clearly to me, that will be really nice. 

√ The form of power

Wrong thinks power has different kinds of forms. Those forms includes: military force, manipulating force, demonstration force and authority. In his book, he uses many chapters to demonstrate them and to explain how they can combine together and have the maximen effect. 

Foucault doesn’t regard power as a form. In his point of view, power is a more complicated thing.

√ The basis of power

For Foucault, power is not just something material. What is important is the relationship between power and knowledge. 

For Wrong, the basis is resource. It can be defined into individual and group resources. They have different functions but both of them are very important for occupying power.

Those above three things are all that I can think of when I compare these two people. If anyone also read works about Foucault and Dennis, we can have a further discussion about these two people.

In case some of you don’t know about Dennis. Here I put some of the introductions about him.

        Dennis Hume Wrong (born November 15, 1923) is an American socialist, and emeritus professor of sociology in the Department of Sociology at New York University. He is the grandson of George Mackinnon Wrong, Canadian historian, and son of Humphrey Hume Wrong, Canadian Ambassador to the United States. He is also the father of documentary filmmaker Terence Wrong.   Wrong is the author of several books, including two essay collections containing articles first published in cultural, intellectual, political and scholarly journals in the United States, Canada, and Britain. He has taught sociology at Princeton University and many other famous universities. Graduate Faculty, and for most of his career at New York University. Wrong is also a permanent editor at Dissent. He is currently retired and lives in Princeton.

The Dennis Wrong Award is given for the best graduate paper of the year by New York University's sociology department.

In 1968 Wrong began to write on power with a contribution to American Jounal of Sociology. The article argued that power is not asymmetrical except in cases of physical violence. It distinguished power from control and potential from possible powers. He cited Bertrand Russell (1938) Power: a new social analysis and Nelson W. Polsby (1963)Community Power and Social Theory. Then in 1979 Wrong published Power: its forms, bases, and uses which was widely reviewed. For example, Jennie M. Hornosty criticized the book for its lack of discussion of class conflict, digression into peripheral issues, and weakness on the social-structural variants of power. Michael Mann criticized it for incompleteness, though he praised the first 159 pages. In Mann's view Wrong's view descends into an analysis of aggregates of individuals at the end. He expected more description of the complex and interpenetrating relations between classes, states, churches, communities, and bureaucracies.Wrong is best known for the introduction of a journal piece "Oversocialized conception of Man in Modern sociology". 

On Chinese Women

Talking about Beauvoir, what strikes me most is her view about women. Nowadays, there are a lot of campaigns trying their best to fight for woman rights. We have to admit that yes, now women are undergoing a better life than ever. But now, I want to share with you some circumstances that Chinese women are facing. I would like to know what do you think about these things or do women in your country face in your country and what’s your solution. I also want to discuss with you guys what are the real equality for women. 

First problem is the name, the family name. In china, family name is a very important thing because it is regarded as a symbol of the passing down of the blood, the family. In most circumstances, children are named after their father. However, in the previous China, there is one-child policy. Two adults all want to pass down their name but there is only child. So here comes the conflicts. For most of the times, children are still named after their father. And now more and more mothers want to pass down their names. If the child is named after the mother,  people will think the wife may stand a higher statue in the family at this situation and then the husband may have have a feeling of losing the reputation. Sometimes this will cause fights between the couple. 

Now the situation is getting better. People start to care less about the family name problem. Some people have interesting solution: they just combine the family name together to be the child’s name. This seems a little bit funny. And this is not a good solution. For me this is not just a problem of the women rights. First, people shouldn’t care too much about the family name. Children are born not for passing down the family glory, but for love. Second, the family name should not be regarded as the symbol of whether the men or the women has a higher statue in the family. People’s opinions should be changed. I know what in western countries there will be middle names. Do you have the same fights on the family name? What do you think about this?

Another thing I want to say is about two-children policy in China. People all around the world find hard to understand the previous one-child policy. They think it is ridiculous. And now China is facing a problem of lacking the labour so that the government is publishing new child policy. At first, they allow the parents to have the second child if either of them is the single child in their family. Now, they allow all the parents to have their second baby. Let’s not consider the cost of having a baby. There is a big problem for women: work or family. We can do a simple calculation. Consider the preparation, the pregnant time and the recover time, woman shall have approximately one year and a half. If they want to have another baby it will be three years. Also for the sake of health, they have to wait at least a year to bear the second baby. That will be at least four years total. The golden age for birth is before 30 years old. People now are getting married at a very late age, about 26 to 28. If they choose to bearing a baby once they get married, that means the women will enter the workplace at the age of 30 if she choose not to work during this period. How can she compete with other young enthusiastic people? If she chooses to work, the boss cannot give her a lot of pressure. As long as the woman is not married or doesn’t have the second baby, the boss will always worried about this problem. How can we find a solution. I know that in western countries this is not the major problem but for us the welfare is not so advanced. Even, we have a lot of people so the job market is more competing. How can women find their place in the workplace and the family?

Last, I want to share my point of view about the real equality for women. We don’t need any laws or regulations for what kind of rights we need. For example, how many jobs should be occupied by women. We just need the same chance and be judged fairly as men. We don’t have to be as strong as men. We have to admit that there are gender differences and both of the genders have their pros and cons. Every woman has the right to choose the life she wants. Work is not the only place we can devote to to show our power. If any woman choose to go back to family, she should not be regarded as giving up her rights. Family is just another different workplace. All in all, every decision we made can be respected and not being looked down. That may be my dream atmosphere for women.

This blog doesn’t say anything about Beauvoir because I am so eager to share the women situation in China with you and I really want to know what’s the situation in your country. I hope women can have a better living condition.

Foucault

“Where there is power, there is resistance.” 

― Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality 

People do not 'have' power implicitly; rather, power is a technique or action which individuals can engage in. Power is not possessed; it is exercised. And where there is power, there is always also resistance.

About this philosopher tons of things could be said. I found his life to be pretty interesting, most of all, I thought about how strong he had to be to cope with his sexual orientation and the fact that he was considered to be sick.

I have read his book Discipline and punish a long time ago..if you haven't read it, i strongly suggest you to do so. It is really intresting and enriching, his main themes are four torture, punishment, discipline and prison.

This book helps us understand how power is used against us as a tool of control, and even if you are totally in favor in the use of force, you will have a little voice that will make you doubt and open you head and eyes! I actually had some anarchist thoughts! 

This post is going to be different from what I am used to do, my idea here, is to post some pharases and I envite you to comment on what you think they mean or how you react to them!

“...if you are not like everybody else, then you are abnormal, if you are abnormal , then you are sick. These three categories, not being like everybody else, not being normal and being sick are in fact very different but have been reduced to the same thing”

“I'm no prophet. My job is making windows where there were once walls.”

“I don’t feel that it is necessary to know exactly what I am. The main interest in life and work is to become someone else that you were not in the beginning. If you knew when you began a book what you would say at the end, do you think that you would have the courage to write it?

What is true for writing and for love relationships is true also for life. The game is worthwhile insofar as we don’t know where it will end.”

“But the guilty person is only one of the targets of punishment. For punishment is directed above all at others, at all the potentially guilty.” 

“The 'Enlightenment', which discovered the liberties, also invented the disciplines.” 

“There is no power relation without the correlative constitution of a field of knowledge, nor any knowledge that does not presuppose and constitute at the same time power relations” 

Fanons philosophy

A personal experience related to discrimination

             While reading Fanon's work, I could not find it spectacular how he was able to fight for his rights that are now recognized all around the globe.

               At least for me, I find it curious how discrimination works...you see? when we are child's we do not care much about anything else than playing and it does not matter if our companion is black, yellow or brown.

            Personally, I lived my early life without knowing nor understanding what discrimination was: I remember,15 years ago, when I was 8 years old we went to live to Australia. I lived in Darwin in the Northen Territory and went to a school named St. Mary's; there I had a friend called Brook that wasn't white and was my best friend. I never had any kind of strange thought or anything. 

                Time passed and I had to move to Italy, there I had a friend called Talal that was from Pakistan, he suffered a lot from bullying because of his religion, skin tone and culture. My discrimination experience began the day I arrived to school with my fellow companion and a bunch of guys showed up and told me not to hang out with Talal because "he is from Pakistan". Latter that day I remember talking about Brook and I showed a picture...the kids where shocked and they asked me how could I be friends with a black girl! I recall going back home and asking my mother why they had told me that I shouldn't be friends. At 12 years old, my mom had to explain to me what discrimination was. 

               Another subject that we could discuss about discrimination is the fact that after so much repression comes libertine. there is not a balance and now there is positive discrimination. for instance, nowadays if you say that you are proud of being born gay, you rule, on the other hand, if you say that you are proud of being heterosexual, you are acting homofobic. Another example, if you say I am proud of being black everyone will clap, if you say I am proud of being white, you are the worst crap in the world. It also happens concerning political views, at least in Latin America, if you belong to the left you are a great person, if you belong to the right, you are a fascist or anti-democrat person....another examples would rely in religion, disability, national origin, weight, relationship status, etc.

 It actually sucks that the world is full of discrimination, and even thou we try not to do so, we usually discriminate in some extent.

                  

                  

French Feminism

Hélène Cixous &

 Poststructuralist Feminist Theory

Born in 1937 in Oran, Algeria, Hélène Cixous a French feminist, play-writer, professor, philosopher, and one of the well-known founders of poststructuralist feminist theory. She has published numerous essays, playwrights, novels, poems and literary criticism. Her academic works concern subjects of feminism, the human body, history, death and theatre.

Hélène was the first child to Eve, who was a refugee from Osnabrück in Nazi Germany and served as a midwife. Her father, Georges, was a physician whose family came to Algeria through the Spanish and Moroccan trade routes. In her writing “The World of Dreams,” Hélène Cixous attributes her work regarding nationality and otherness to her upbringing: “My own writing was born in Algeria out of a lost country of the dead father and the foreign mother.” In fact, Hélène states, “[I] never thought I was at home [in Algeria], nor that Algeria was my country, nor that I was French.” Instead, her childhood experiences as an Algerian Jew made her realize that the logic of nationality was usually associated with colonialism or antisemitism.

During the early years of her education in Algeria, Hélène thought of herself and her family as a nationality of “other.” She said, “How could I be from a France that colonized an Algerian country when I knew that we ourselves, German Czechoslovak Hungarian Jews, were other Arabs?” Cixous continues to grapple with her sense of foreignness throughout her education in Algeria, and into her studies in Paris. Due to the restricted quota for Jews in Algerian schools, Hélène was actually the only Jew in her class, and even in higher education she was one of the few females in an entirely male school. As a result, Cixous became increasingly aware of the mechanisms of exclusion and interdiction based on cultural and sexual differences, and their specific interactions with nationality. 

In 1975 Cixous publishes one of her most prominent texts on in feminist writing titled, “The Laugh of the Medusa,” in the newly founded American feminist journal Signs. In this writing, Cixous introduces her controversial idea of an insurgent, feminine-defined writing practice, which addresses and analyzes the dominant patriarchal system. In this system, she says, women are systematically deprived of their own cultural, psychic and sexual goods, while other forms of oppression based on, say, ethnicity, class, or race, thrive on women’s expropriation. Cixous further discusses how women have been repressed through their bodies all throughout history. She suggests that if women are forced to remain in their bodies as a result of male repression then they can do one of two things: remain trapped inside our bodies, thereby perpetuating the passivity women have been a party to throughout history, or use the female body as a medium of communication, a tool through which women can speak.

As a result of her this novel and her other feminist writings, Hélène Cixous is considered one of the mothers of poststructuralist feminist theory, which is a branch of feminism that engages with insights from poststructuralist thought. Poststructural feminism emphasizes “the contingent and discursive nature of all identities,” and in particular the social construction of gendered subjectivities. An important contribution of this branch was to establish that there is no universal single category of "woman" or “man” and to identify the intersectionality of sex, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, nationality, and more. Today, Cixous is a professor of English Literature at University of Paris VIII and chairs the Centre de Recherches en Etudes Féminines which she founded in 1974.

One is not born women, but becomes so

What I found interesting in reading excerpts of Beauvoir’s Second Sex was the argument she made on immanence and transcendence, within the context of the relationship between man and women.

“(…) man represents both the positive and the neutral, as is indicated by the common use of man to designate human beings in general; whereas woman represents only the negative, defined by limiting criteria, without reciprocity.” (The Second Sex)

First of all, her main idea is that the woman is always “the other” and has always been “othered”; in fact, in the preface, she follows Hegel’s dialectics to show how man and woman fit in his dialectical scheme. “He is the Subject, he is the Absolute – she is the Other.” Man establishes the Other – woman – in defining himself as a man, rendering her an object of submission. As we said in class, when talking about how men and women are brought up in a different way, Beauvoir states that “Woman is determined not by her hormones or by mysterious instincts, but by the manner in which her body and her relation to the world are modified through the action of others than herself”.

So her idea is that woman is the other of the man and, because of this, men define themselves as men through their opposition to women, through this rejection. Therefore, women’s existence is a sort of “negative” existence, if we follow the dialectical process. This idea of woman has always prevailed, as a being which “is less” than a man; as Aristotle said “The female is a female by virtue of a certain lack of qualities”.

The important distinction she makes is that women belong to immanence, while only men can become transcendent. Being able to become transcendent entails freedom. Thus women are inherently dependent and prevented from freedom; this condition of dependence is what allows men to be free and to be transcendent. However, this dependence is mutual, because without women, men cannot accede to transcendence or define themselves, because of the dialectical relationship among men and women, where women constitute the negation.

Ultimately there’s a dead-end situation, since we need both immanence and transcendence and thus if women were to have also transcendence, then no one would cover their position.

Therefore, the only solution seems to be the deconstruction of the distinction between men and women and the repartition of immanence and transcendence between them.

Sartre's reminding us of our responsibility

Though it may seem odd coming from him, I think Sartre has some life-lesson to give us. In “Existentialism is a Humanism” he gives humanity full responsibility of its existence.His argument starts from two basic ideas: existence precedes essence and man is condemned to be free.

"Atheistic existentialism, of which I am a representative, declares with greater consistency that if God does not exist there is at least one being whose existence comes before itsessence, a being which exists before it can be defined by any conception of it. That being is man or, as Heidegger has it, the human reality." Since existence precedes essence, there is no determinism and therefore man is free. His liberty resides in his becoming, which cannot be foreseen. "Man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world – and defines himself afterwards." (Existentialism is a Humanism)

 Being free, we are responsible for what we do, for ourselves but also for others. In fact, when we choose for ourselves, in choosing to be something, we confirm the value of our choice, since we can never choose wrong. We are aware that with every choice of ours, we are choosing for the whole of humanity. Because of this we are subject to anguish and this will make us carefully and thoroughly analyse every possibility we might have, so that we’ll make the right decision.
Therefore, Sartre here defines his existentialism as humanism since he considers man the “legislator” of himself, having full responsibility of his actions and of his future. We have the right, but especially the duty to re-invent ourselves and reach our essence, since this doesn’t precede existence but vice versa. His concentration on subjectivity, which seems to be the object of many critiques, is simply given by the importance of the choices we make for ourselves.Though his humanism and subjectivism are based on an existential nothingness, Sartre’s view on man seems quite optimistic, in that man’s destiny is in his own hands. He seems to remind us of the responsibility we have in taking action and making decisions, which are also going to affect others, and so must remind ourselves of this beforehand. He reminds us of the huge potential power we have in affecting the world.