Thursday, September 17, 2009

Frantz Fanon

In class the professor told us that if we are graduating with a degree in sociology, or a college degree at all, we should be familiar with Frantz Fanon. I wasn't, so I looked him up.


Black Skin, White Masks.

"Fanon's personal experience as a black intellectual in a whitened world and elaborates the ways in which the colonizer/colonized relationship is normalized as psychology . . . Fanon inflects his medical and psychological practice with the understanding that racism generates harmful psychological constructs that both blind the black man to his subjection to a universalized white norm and alienate his consciousness. A racist culture prohibits psychological health in the black man" (english.emory.edu/Bahri/Fanon.html).

"Fanon insists, however, that the category "white" depends for its stability on its negation, 'black.' Neither exists without the other, and both come into being at the moment of imperial conquest" (english.emory.edu/Bahri/Fanon.html).

The Wretched of the Earth

"In The Wretched of the Earth, Fanon develops the Manichean perspective implicit in BSWM. To overcome the binary system in which black is bad and white is good, Fanon argues that an entirely new world must come into being. This utopian desire, to be absolutely free of the past, requires total revolution, "absolute violence" (37). Violence purifies, destroying not only the category of white, but that of black too. According to Fanon, true revolution in Africa can only come from the peasants, or "fellaheen." Putting peasants at the vanguard of the revolution reveals the influence of the FLN, who based their operations in the countryside, on Fanon's thinking. Furthermore, this emphasis on the rural underclass highlights Fanon's disgust with the greed and politicking of the comprador bourgeoisie in new African nations. The brand of nationalism espoused by these classes, and even by the urban proletariat, is insufficient for total revolution because such classes benefit from the economic structures of imperialism. Fanon claims that non-agrarian revolutions end when urban classes consolidate their own power, without remaking the entire system" (english.emory.edu/Bahri/Fanon.html).


Bentham and Utilitarianism

In class today we touched on Bentham and his concept of utilitarianism. I studied Bentham in my Philosophy course on ethics, but I needed a brief refresher. Here are some resources:


Wednesday, September 16, 2009

You Are Being Watched

The ACLU has a great website against video surveillance, http://youarebeingwatched.us/

The site addresses video surveillance as an infringement on civil liberties. There are tons of resources on here including stories of incidents related to video surveillance and statistics on the effectiveness of surveillance. One of the features is a map of surveillance hotspots.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Video Surveliance in San Francisco


This NPR news story on "All Things Considered" relates to Foucault's concept of panopticism. The story talks about so-called "public surveillance cameras" which were installed in San Francisco. The point of the cameras is to discourage crime, and some claim they are effective. The aim is clearly to achieve social control because people know they are being monitored. In this case, quite literally.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Cameras Catch Kiss


There is an article on video surveillance in a high school. This school has 16 cameras inside as well as outside. In an age where video surveillance in high schools (and in general) is common practice, the controversy is how the cameras are being used.

The school showed a video of a female student holding hands and kissing another female student to the student's parents. The student complained to the school district who determined the security guard who showed the parents the footage "didn't violate policy".

The cameras have reportedly been used for other issues not related to security, such as to discipline a student who left a trash on a lunch table.

The cameras are clearly not being used just for security; they are being used for social control.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

"The Red Cross Torture Report: What it Means" by Mark Danner

(notes from class discussion)


This article is not really about torture itself, but focuses on the politics of torture. Torture has become a political game abut who can protect Americans. Danner makes the point that we throw out our laws whenever we feel like it.

Danner discusses what is going on at a political level, the "logic" of the political conversation is as follows:

There are terrorists who want to attack us.
If we could find out their plans we could stop them.
With torture we can find out their plans.
Therefore, we should torture.

Why would America not want to torture?
-Hypocritical, against what we say/thing we are about
-Is it even effective?

Friday, September 4, 2009

The Medieval Torture Museum

In case Foucault's descriptions of torture wern't graphic enough...

There is a "Historical Torture Museum"

At this exhibit you can learn all about the type of tortue Foucault describes.

In the decription of the exhibit, the museum addresses Foucault's ideas about torture of the body as well as the soul. The article says "Our commitment, which we share with all who are interested in combating violence, torture, and capital punishment against living beings, is to show how throughout the centuries human beings have been tortured, both in body and soul, in the name of the truth, its only justification often being submission to the authorities. All over the world, in the past and in the present, torture has been practiced both against the body and the mind of the victim" (torture museum.com)

This site also has a listing of events, many of which focus on contemporary instances of torture.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Foucault, Part One: Torture

Damiens (regicide) 1757 --> Faucher 1837

Between these two times was the enlightenment:
logic over belief
science over tradition
education increased
religion pushed aside, etc.
Isaac Newton said with math you can know the mind of God
equality
Adam Smith- "Wealth of Nations" 1776
Jeremy Bentham- theory of utilitarianism
rise of rationalism= calculability of everything
move from monarchy to democracy

Correlative History:
Body --> Soul
Damiens --> Faucher
Torture --> Timetable

All these were the same manifestations in the way the culture thinks about power and control.

Leper --> Plague
Separation --> Segmentation
Mark --> Analysis of distribution
Pure community --> Disciplined society

The general thesis is that this looks like progressive humanization but it is not. It is the process by which power makes itself less and less obtrusive.

Welcome

Welcome to my blog!

This will be a file for my Social Control of Deviant Behavior class at Mills College.