Panopticism

In the essay, Panopticism, by Michel Focault, he makes the argument that we live in a society of surveillance. Meaning that our society is based on amalgamation of forces and bodies, all of which act to create the individual. It is this surveillance which forms the basis of power that draws the individual to believe that the world he lives in is one that is continually watching over him. Maybe. But this is America. I may have taken a backseat in many of America's internal issues, but this will not be one of them. We contunually struggle with this idea of "Big Brother" always watchig our every move, making sure that we fill the prescribed roles taught to us from birth. I have a real problem with that. I don't believe that it has to be true. I think that poeple make it true by being lazy about the world they live in. Since Americans strive for wealth more than happiness it is easy to see why the "big brother" idea was ingrained in us. People in America don't want to handle thier affiars so they pass the buck to the government they created only to be their VOICE. The liberty that has been paid for is misused and deluded, because people have lost the ability to speak for themselves. We have created a society that creats us. Everything around us tells us who we are and what we should be. I would hate to think of America as one big advertisement, but essentially thats what it is. Do this and you won't get in trouble, wear this and you'll belong here, be who you want just make sure that I (big brother) benefit from it.
Although these things are in my mind's eyes, I found it incredibly curious that Foucalt usues the black plague to illustrate his point. The balck plague, as you most likely already know, was no doubt the darkest hour of humanity caused by nature...with a little help from our four legged rodent friends! The plague effectively eliminated 1/3 of the population of Earth. That more than all the wars ever fought combined.
However Focault does not remind us of this, instead he uses these dark times to suit his purposes, and as well he should. For there is no time in human history where such total and complete order and compliance was ever to be achieved...not even here in our great America. In the very face of death the governments of the world needed to establish a quarantine of humanity as this was the only way to expose the disease vector, and to eliminate the possibilty of the disease spreading further. Citizens on the one hand, may or may not have liked being watched all the time, but deep down they recognized that it must be done or they would surely die.
Point being, that there was not one aspect of human activity that was not monitored and regulated. Now then that was a great need and is why we survived as a human race. However to carry that all the way over to America is pain insanity. Our "Big Brother" doesn't want to help us, he wants us turned into robots. Easy to handle human beings. It is our own fear that creates this, as in our constituiton we claim that the government is only the representative of the people...it's voice. Instead we have made it our master and we are it's slaves.

Utopia Achieved

"lets all celebrate now. Americans have the proper theory/practice balance--not conceptualizing reality but realizing concepts..."

Do you agree? Yes I do. After reading Jean Baudrillards Utopia Achieved, I began to see America in a way that is not as apple pie as I have been culutred to think. It was a hard lump to digest to be sure, but one that has to be swallowed to move forward. (I know that totally makes sense right)
I began to see America as a whole entity rather than an enormous group of individuals...although this is America's greatest gift to begin with. The promise of freedom and individuality, one can choose to do or be anything, just as long as its the best mind you. This is just what Baudrillard is trying to illustrate. He is painting the picture of two worlds. One old and one new. The old is confined by it's own history in trying to realize the concepts that it has come to realize through centuries of trial and error. This other world is new, and not only has achieved many of these old concepts, but has surpassed them and now strives only to make it last indefinitely.

I like to think of America as an Idea machine. Constantly turning out, not new products, but dreams, hopes, and wishes. America is the land of oppurtunity because it is the land of want. It is a place where anyone can go to find what they are looking for. It is a place where everyone is bound by societies image rather than by society itself. A billboard along a highway says more to us than the daily newspaper calling to us about the distant affais of the old world and it's strife. America is competition. I want more than you.

Adrienne Rich

Men beware, she is hot to handle. But not without cause. I think That rich is a real writer. Now that is not to say that others aren’t, but Rich has gone through the correct thought process. She knows that it is beyond gender, Male or female, that it requires something else. That it must transcend normal thought. In this she is finding a power that women have for so long, in the writing world, been denied. I don’t see any reason why they should be excluded, for what human can do another can do, but hey I may be the only person who thinks that way!
There is something that she writes on page 546 that really snatched me, because it was the way I first began to think when I began writing…oh and to be sure I am NOT a female, so this only further proves that writing/communication is not unisex. “For about ten years I was reading in fierce snatches, scribbling in notebooks, writing poetry in fragments; I was looking for clues, because if there were no clues then I thought I might be insane.” Me too. Early in my life I came into a library of books. Among them were great authors like Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne, to whom I owe a great debt. However in the rush to experience what it felt to write I thought that I could find something in these books and authors that would help me in my own style. Wrong. Sure they all influenced me, but my style is born from my own soul and that is something I had to come to terms with, after thousands and thousands of crumpled papers!
I would also like to say something about Sources. One line in this entire thing encapsulates what I have been fighting myself. “I have resisted this for years, writing to you as if you could hear me.” I do not speak well verbally, and often times not even in writing, but somehow in writing I always manage to say something, or better yet to someone. All the things that I can’t articulate with the mouth I can sure as hell articulate with my pen. For years growing up I would write letters to my father asking him to get divorced, why did he put up with such abuse? I know it sounds crazy but if you care to comment, as I have only received two (and from the same person!) Maybe I’ll tell you a little about it.

Harriet Jacobs

I wish I was more competent for the task I have undertaken…that’s what keeps popping into my mind as I read Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. I think it’s possible that she has been through so much, as is apparent in the story, that she doesn’t even know how talented she is.
There are a few things I would like to say . One is I may not have been a slave, but I do know exactly what it is like to be controlled by another’s will. Not to have thought nor breath that is my own. I was mastered by my stepmother in a most psychological way. There was no help from my father “They were the objects of her constant suspicion and malevolence. She watched her husband with unceasing vigilance; but he was well practiced in the means to evade it.” That perfectly describes my own father. He spoke little and did all he could to avoid my step mom.
How can there be so much evil in this world.? Jacobs cries out, in all modesty “IN the view of these things, why are ye silent, ye free men and women of the north? Why do your tongues falter in maintenance of the right? Would that I had more ability! But my heart is so full, and my pen so weak!” That’s an amazing quote to me because it still rings true today. Because people are uninformed and so no desire to be informed, never will they know of the horrors that still exist within the hearts of evil men today.
Bottom line is that I appreciated Harriet Jacobs view of slavery a little more than James Baldwin. It is more human. Jacobs writes from her experience . I like that because I like to see the truth in all things. I do not like things sugar coated, I don’t like things to be alluded to, and I really don’t like it when an author doesn’t allow me to feel what the author felt. I feel bad because I am supposed to. This is something I am sorry ever happened to anyone and I will do all in my power to prevent from ever happening again. That I believe is the point…to learn one’s lesson.

Houdini's Box

Seeing isn’t believing. I’ve always believed this philosophy, and I have also always been a fan of Houdini. I first saw the Metamorphosis performed while I was in grade school. The Boise Little Theatre had come to my school performing a play about the great Harry Houdini. I was amazed and astonished that such a feat could be accomplished. After reading this essay I felt amazed and astonished all over again like I was in grade school all over again. The concept of escape comes up continually. Escape from ourselves and the world around us and all that it entails. Personally I believe this whole heartedly. Everyone needs a little escape know and then. Places things into perspective. The problem is, where is there to escape to? Can one really hide from everything? What do you think Houdini would have said. He would have said something along the line of my own personal philosophy. Impossible only means just hasn’t happened yet.

Alice Walker

I am not Black. I am most certainly not a woman…but my heart is still broken. I cannot even begin to describe the feeling of the knife as it plunges into my heart. I cannot begin to number the sins that leak from the wounds it creates. They are not only mine, but are shared with generations of men and women. Their trespasses are mine because I refuse to forget them. I shoulder the weight of the damage they have caused because I will not forget those who have suffered. They did not suffer by my hand, but they might as well have. I can see it in the eyes of their ancestors. The pain that is written upon their souls that they cannot explain because they can’t forget it either. I don’t know how to tell them I’m sorry without sounding condescending or presumptuous. I don’t know how to tell them that there is a thing called love. There is a love that goes beyond a man and a woman…even beyond God. It is nothing that could ever be expressed with words. It can only be experienced when it is felt. So overpowering that it feels as if you are only a child again, fresh from the womb, and free of all evil that was bestowed upon you by the actions of those that came before you. I am not Black. I am not a woman…but my heart is still broken.

richard Rodriguez

I like this one a lot…a lot! Rodriguez writes from a very human perspective, and I see a lot of myself in the story of his education. I think it’s a theme that’s developing in me. First it was Henry Adams, and now a more contemporary author Richard Rodriguez.
Rodriguez talks about how, over the years, his education increasingly distanced himself from his family and from that of those around him. He felt alone. That is entirely how I first felt when I began to read everything in my sight. He also talks about how there seemed an enmity between him and fellow students. People like us are considered suck ups or brown nosers. Really people just don’t like being outclassed. Although I will be the first to admit that that is far from the truth, and takes a high level of ignorance to believe. It is only human to feel like someone thinks themselves better because they are “smarter.” Everyone has something to offer whether you’re a paint mixer or the president. I think it is this above all that I have taken from my reading. There is value in almost everything we do, and knowledge is not to be coveted…it is to be shared. Anyways I have rambled on long enough as this is only the surface of what I am really feeling, and would take me damn near 1000 pages to express…if I’m lucky.