Week 7: Spontaneous Brilliant Thoughts

This is a place for rambling thoughts, for spontaneous brilliant thoughts that just have to be written and cannot wait. A place to post something that comes to mind after lecture, or while reading, and that will generate spontaneous responses and a back and forth communication. So, freestyle your brilliance and post!

Ledoux's Arc-et-Senans (pg. 173)

Paris-Duverny's Ecole Militaire (pg. 172)

FOUCAULT!

In lecture yesterday, I was SO interested in the paragraph that Professor has read out loud for us. It is the one on page 172. I was wondering if we can start a discussion about it. I mean, to be fully honest, I am still a little confused. So it would be great if someone can start off, and we can all have great/wonderful ideas together! So here is the passage:

A whole problematic then develops: that of an architecture that is no longer built simply to be seen (as with the ostentation of palaces), or to observe the external space (Cf. the geometry of fortresses), but to permit an internal, articulated and detailed control- to render visible those who are inside it; in more general terms, an architecture that would operate to transform individuals: to act on those it shelters, to provide a hold on their conduct, to carry the effects of power right to them, to make it possible to know them, to alter them. Stones can make people docile and knowable. The old simple schema of confinement and enclosure- thick walls, a heavy gate that prevents entering or leaving- began to be replaced by the calculation of openings, or filled and empty spaces, passages and transparencies. Foucault, 172.

My own little understanding of this passage is that Foucault is discussing how the mechanism of disciplinary would be seeing everything as a whole. (It is more open, thick walls no longer exist.) In this case, surveillance itself becomes part of the disciplinary process (examples of hospitals/schools). Thus, power changes through it's architecture, in which discipline functions through a calculated gaze (it is not longer calculated by force).

Thank you! Wafa

"Everything's amazing, nobody's happy."

Louis CK

"When I read things like 'The foundations of capitalism are shattering",' I'm like maybe we need that."

I just thought this was funny. And it makes a nice point about our inability to finally satisfy our needs with increasing division of labor. Durkheim may say this is great, this is how OS can be created, while Marx might point to how it just perpetuates the increase of DL and capitalist hunger, while Foucault might just sit back and watch what we decide.

Slumdogs' Big Dreams

Horatio Alger Relocates to a Mumbai Slum

This article offers an interesting perspective of the Oscar sweeping film, Slumdog Millionaire as a signal of shifting ideologies. The film is the exemplary American story of a poor slum-dwelling man who, through individual guts and grit, wins a million dollars and I'm guessing finds the love of his life again. It takes place, however, in India. Due to the economic crisis, America is currently reevaluating the American Dream while India seems to be increasingly taking hold of it. Is the collective consciousness of the US changing by Obama's push to collectivize government? Or does the popularity of Slumdog Millionaire mark the hold of the American Dream upon us? Would Foucault have anything to say other than, "It's all power"?

Lethal Injection

Our current form of execution is by lethal injection. While Burawoy read a description of the process, he suggested we could also find a video of the process on youtube. I actually found it highly difficult to find a clip of an actual execution, and frankly it is a draining process watching so many clips of the death chambers.

Here is a more dramatic representation of lethal injection from the movie, Dead Man Walking. You can skip ahead about 4 minutes to the execution chamber.



Notice how the condemned man, says to the witnesses. "I just wanna say I think killin' is wrong, no matter who does it, whether it's me or y'all or your government". Also notice the layout of the execution chamber itself. It's a small room with windows for select witnesses related to the victim and the criminal. The executioner presses a button and the lethal injection is automated. And to quote a youtube user that commented on the clip, "the movie is actually pretty neutral on the issue. Watch the last few minutes of this video - the juxtaposition of Poncelet's crime to his death...shows the evil thing he did right next to the cruelty of his own death. I think it lets the viewer come to his/her own conclusion. Powerful stuff."

President Obama's Speech

A few hours ago, President Obama gave a speech that outlined his view of the nation's current situation, including a brief analysis of what preceded the current economic crisis, along with his goals for the future. (Does anyone else think this has an uncanny resemblance to our midterm?)

Did you find anything particularly striking during the speech? Let's hear your thoughts. Don't worry, you don't have to write an essay. On this blog, you never have to raise your hand and you will never be graded for what you say. What's on your mind?


Btw, this is not a partisan blog. Feel free to watch and comment on Governor Jindal's Republican response if you want.

Sociology Cartoon

From Professor Burawoy

"I've posted two articles on Foucault's political work defending the rights of prisoners [on Bspace]. The shorter one is a brief summary of two books on the matter whereas the second is a critical account of Foucault's claim to be allowing prisoners to speak out their concerns, giving them their authentic voice. The author turns Foucault against Foucault showing how difficult it is for intellectuals to allow others to speak without also being spoken for. What might Gramsci think of this with his idea of the organic intellectual? The debate between Gramsci and Foucault is indeed a fascinating one!"—Professor Burawoy

Playing it Cool

For those of us not taking Social Psychology this semester, we recently watched Cool Hand Luke as an example of the effects of social conformity and obedience. Since the movie is the story of a man sent to prison for a petty crime, and struggles with the oppression of prison life, there are also interesting ties to Durkheim and Foucault (especially as we continue reading Discipline and Punish I bet)

"The Box"

Post continued in the comments section-

Foucault - Chomsky Debates

Several of the GSIs have showed/will be showing these debates in section, as a way of introducing Michel Foucault (and it's kind of cool that we can finally watch one of our theorists on film!). Here, Foucault debates Noam Chomsky (linguist, jack-of-all-trades, political activist, anarcho-libertarian-socialist?) on the nature and location of power in society, on human nature (and whether we can even say what "human nature" is), and on the possibilities of realizing a better, brighter future.

Part One: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kawGakdNoT0
Part Two: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43Ai5WPHqWA

Keep in mind possible comparisons between Foucault and: (1) Durkheim; (2) Marx; and (3) Gramsci.

Social Justice in Times of Crisis

In this February 8th NY Times article, we can read about the different perspectives on welfare - food stamps, TANF, etc. - in this time of economic crisis. Does increasing support to these types of welfare create the social justice that Durkheim says we need for a "normal" division of labor? Are we in a time of crisis, wherein "the vital functions are obliged to draw their nourishment from less essential functions"? (Durkheim, 213) Are there other Durkheimian arguments we can make here?
...

February 8, 2009

The ‘W’ Word, Re-engaged

By JASON DePARLE

Ronald Reagan brooked no doubt that food stamps equaled welfare. Running for president in 1976 he told what became a defining tale about the “strapping young buck” in the supermarket line who used stamps to buy T-bone steaks. His first White House budget made deep food stamp cuts.

Newt Gingrich equated food stamps and welfare, and tried to use Bill Clinton’s pledge to “end welfare as we know it” to dismantle the program. Rudolph Giuliani, in his end-welfare days as the mayor of New York, railed against a “romantic and emotional” view of food stamps and ordered subordinates to withhold applications.

But George W. Bush did not treat food stamps like welfare. He dubbed the program “nutritional assistance” and gave bonuses to states that were most aggressive in signing poor people up. At the same time he pushed states to cut their cash assistance rolls — citing the failures of the welfare state.

There has long been an element of the subjective in what gets defined as the “safety net” and what gets attacked as “welfare,” that elastic and stigmatizing term. Now rising joblessness and misery have started new conflicts and exposed old rifts.

The recovery measures moving through Congress would spend significant new sums on programs for the needy. The House version includes food stamps, unemployment benefits, Medicaid, child care, Head Start, energy assistance, homelessness prevention, disability payments and infant nutrition. A Senate agreement was reached Friday night, with further negotiation to come between the two chambers.

Sponsors of this spending call it a humane response to soaring hardship and an economically productive one; giving money to the poor stimulates the economy, they say, because poor people are quick to spend it. Conservatives have argued that poverty programs undermine work and marriage, and some see the stimulus bill as a stealth expansion of the welfare state. The very word, welfare, was weaponized last week.... [Follow link above for full article]

Detecting Textual Evidence

Hi classmates :) I started doing this on my computer for the midterm and thought I would share. I marked where I could detect "textual evidence" for the four themes Burawoy suggests are in the inaugural. Add or disagree wherever you catch something I did not- which is quite a bit b/c almost every line can be tied with a theme!

The work I started is in the comment box under this post.

Durkheim vs. Greenspan

Because this is the "Living Theory" blog, we're going to resurrect Durkheim. GSI Kate Mason shared the following NYT article with her sections. She asked: How would Durkheim question or respond to Greenspan? What do you think?

Doug Mills/The New York Times

Alan Greenspan, former Federal Reserve chairman, with John Snow, former Secretary of the Treasury, at a hearing on Capitol Hill on Thursday.

Greenspan Concedes Error on Regulation

By EDMUND L. ANDREWS

Published: October 23, 2008

WASHINGTON — ... [A]lmost three years after stepping down as chairman of the Federal Reserve, a humbled Mr. Greenspan admitted that he had put too much faith in the self-correcting power of free markets and had failed to anticipate the self-destructive power of wanton mortgage lending.

... Now 82, Mr. Greenspan came in for one of the harshest grillings of his life, as Democratic lawmakers asked him time and again whether he had been wrong, why he had been wrong and whether he was sorry.

Critics, including many economists, now blame the former Fed chairman for the financial crisis that is tipping the economy into a potentially deep recession. Mr. Greenspan’s critics say that he encouraged the bubble in housing prices by keeping interest rates too low for too long and that he failed to rein in the explosive growth of risky and often fraudulent mortgage lending.

“You had the authority to prevent irresponsible lending practices that led to the subprime mortgage crisis. You were advised to do so by many others,” said Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, chairman of the committee. “Do you feel that your ideology pushed you to make decisions that you wish you had not made?”

Mr. Greenspan conceded: “Yes, I’ve found a flaw. I don’t know how significant or permanent it is. But I’ve been very distressed by that fact.”

On a day that brought more bad news about rising home foreclosures and slumping employment, Mr. Greenspan refused to accept blame for the crisis but acknowledged that his belief in deregulation had been shaken.

He noted that the immense and largely unregulated business of spreading financial risk widely, through the use of exotic financial instruments called derivatives, had gotten out of control and had added to the havoc of today’s crisis. As far back as 1994, Mr. Greenspan staunchly and successfully opposed tougher regulation on derivatives.

... Mr. Waxman noted that the Fed chairman had been one of the nation’s leading voices for deregulation, displaying past statements in which Mr. Greenspan had argued that government regulators were no better than markets at imposing discipline.

... Mr. Greenspan, along with most other banking regulators in Washington, also resisted calls for tighter regulation of subprime mortgages and other high-risk exotic mortgages that allowed people to borrow far more than they could afford.

The Federal Reserve had broad authority to prohibit deceptive lending practices under a 1994 law called the Home Owner Equity Protection Act . But it took little action during the long housing boom, and fewer than 1 percent of all mortgages were subjected to restrictions under that law.

... Despite his chagrin over the mortgage mess, the former Fed chairman proposed only one specific regulation: that companies selling mortgage-backed securities be required to hold a significant number themselves. ...

To read the full article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/24/business/economy/24panel.html