Foucault, the Disciplines, and God as the Watcher

[_Bond...James Bond]

You've got an interesting set of ideas to work with Bond---if you end up working on them further, perhaps in a paper for your course, I'd be happy to read and comment on it. I have some criticisms of the extent or consequences of the Foucaudian notion of "power." I find it the weakest part of his work---it finally becomes near libidinal in its fluidity. But on the "archeological" level, Foucault's work is very useful and disciplinarity a good way into conceptualizing the materiality of ideas---rule on the level of the ideological and not the level of direct force. In an "information age" this becomes all the more pertinent. And the panopticon is such an exemplary metaphor for the modern liberal state, one can see it displayed institutionally at all levels. (I've been talking about it in one of my classes this week in light of the borrowing of prison architecture in the planning of some college campuses.)

You may also be interested in similar ideas found in the work of postmodern feminists on "the gaze" and Foucault's teacher, Louis Althusser's work on the ideological production of subjectivity. You can find the basics in Mulvey's essay, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," and Althusser's "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses." Mulvey, via Freud and scopophilia, and Althusser, via Lacan and Marx, are both interested in the shaping of human subjectivity---identity, gender, consciousness itself---via cultural "institutions" like education and popular culture.

If you'd find it helpful I can easily email you some of the teaching materials I use on these and related concepts in my classes: short "tutor texts" that summarize the work of these theorists and trace thier history and links.

You may also be interested to know that Foucault did indeed find BDSM subculture of great interest since his work engaged with issues of power exchange: its a no brainer that a practice which theatricalized this and allowed its participants the position of playing with that which is oppressive elsewhere, a choice about things that are not chosen elsewhere would obviously be fascinating. He was not however a "regular in the San Franscisco S&M scene for years" in the sneering sense of that phrase. He came to America (while teaching at Berkeley) in 1979-80, I think, and since he died in '84 that was hardly a long stretch of his life. He did however appreciate the openness of gay life in the bay area and he indeed relished its freedoms. Of course, his work also suggests that pleasure, sexual and otherwise, is more a matter of regulation and self-discipline than libertine conduct or permissive anarchy---something which makes his writing, and his life, more complicated and resistant to being dismissed by simplistic one-liners.

I doubt I'll do a paper on this issue. I only have to do a 2 page paper, and will probably write an agreement with Foucault's position on how individuality is created by the disciplining techniques, and how it's actually empowering because through the system of documentation (which helps create an individual identity) and examinations (tests through life both overt and subtle) society actually creates a framework allowing people to be recognized as extraordinary or different/talented/more intelligent than one's peers. Which is opposed to my first thoughts on the system which were more structural in nature, which was a system that appeared to take all the individuality, chance, and randomness out of crafting an individual persona.

My opening post was just continuing the idea of surveillance and observation as a disciplining technique. The installation of paranoia of being watched when you don't know you're being watched (think those reflective mirrors or security cameras and other technology) has continued to take the "Big Brother" role out of God's hands and continue to give more and more surveillance power to humans.

Oh crap...gotta run to class...will respond to the rest later. :)

[_Bond...James Bond]

You've got an interesting set of ideas to work with Bond---if you end up working on them further, perhaps in a paper for your course, I'd be happy to read and comment on it. I have some criticisms of the extent or consequences of the Foucaudian notion of "power." I find it the weakest part of his work---it finally becomes near libidinal in its fluidity. But on the "archeological" level, Foucault's work is very useful and disciplinarity a good way into conceptualizing the materiality of ideas---rule on the level of the ideological and not the level of direct force. In an "information age" this becomes all the more pertinent. And the panopticon is such an exemplary metaphor for the modern liberal state, one can see it displayed institutionally at all levels. (I've been talking about it in one of my classes this week in light of the borrowing of prison architecture in the planning of some college campuses.)

Architecture is one of the best examples of the surveillance. The panopticon being a great example, but you can also look at schools, hospitals, prisons, and most other types of architecture where the ability to see in is becoming more and more prevalent (huge windows in private homes, windows in the doors of schools, hospitals and prisons where the doctors/guards are centralized so that they can see everyone, but everyone can't see everyone else or see them easily.

Also a good example has worked it's way into our speech..."people who live in glass houses..."

[_Bond...James Bond]

I think the common misconception that theists have that without god, there would be anarchy speaks to the truth of what you're asserting, Bond. I've said it a million times before, and I'll say it again; a belief in god is a partial abdication of one's personal responsibility. Those who act morally without the great surveillance camera in the sky are the truly responsible ones. They do it out of a sense of personal morality and discipline rather than a fear of what their invisible daddy will think.

I don't know if it's so much that we want to give up personal responsibility, more that through dozens of generations we've continued to perpetuate the idea of God, and that it's somewhat built into our society to assume there is a God out there watching over us and watching us for violations of his moral code.

[_John Larsen]

Bond, there is a whole subset of work that has been done on observation and economic gaming theory that explains behavior under observation. You may want to look into that some.

John

[_Coggins7]

How something could be detrimental to the individual (like drug use) while at the same time being of benefit to society is an interesting question, and seems counter intuitive.[/quote]

How about dying in a war?

How is observing the Ten Commandments or believing that one is accountable for one's acts in relation to his fellow beings detrimental to society?

I believe Atheism is, fundamentally, a philosophically weak position (unlike agnosticism, which simply admits ignorance of things beyond the directly empirical and formally logical), as it tries to make positive claims to knowledge about things, such as the existence of God, that it has already admitted cannot be known.

No self respecting atheist claims that the non-existence of God cannot be known.

Precisely; the assertion that "God does not exist" is a claim based upon axiomatic metaphysical assumptions that themselves cannot be demonstrated--which makes it little different from the alternative claim, which Atheists citicize on the same grounds.

Clearly, to state a universal affirmative proposition to the effect, "God does not exist", one would have to have some positive knowledge about his non-existence. The Atheist, however, bars the theist from any such positive knowledge of his existence, and hence, bars himself from any such knowledge of his non-existence.

I don't bar the theist from anything. No theist has demonstrated postive knowledge of his existence so far. Once they do so, I will change my position.

[/quote]

Once again, the same old attempted application of empiricism/positivism to ultimate questions of meaning and existence that will not admit of this kind of methodological approach.

Very much like Bass fishing in the Himalayas.

[_Some Schmo]

I don't know if it's so much that we want to give up personal responsibility, more that through dozens of generations we've continued to perpetuate the idea of God, and that it's somewhat built into our society to assume there is a God out there watching over us and watching us for violations of his moral code.

But why has the god idea been perpetuated? What appeal does it have?

There are multiple psychological advantages for believing in god, and escaping a fundamental aspect of one's personal responsibility is merely one of them. There are other avenues for escaping responsibility, too. I'm not saying there's a one to one relationship between god belief and irresponsibility, but there is certainly a relationship.

[_Coggins7]

I think the common misconception that theists have that without god, there would be anarchy speaks to the truth of what you're asserting, Bond. I've said it a million times before, and I'll say it again; a belief in god is a partial abdication of one's personal responsibility. Those who act morally without the great surveillance camera in the sky are the truly responsible ones. They do it out of a sense of personal morality and discipline rather than a fear of what their invisible daddy will think.

This is just smarmy Madalyn Murray O' Hareesque religion bashing. Do you actually have a philosophical argument, or a body of conceptually well organized principles that would demonstrate why your belief should be taken seriously, beyond a simplistic emotional prejudice against religion?



coggins7 wrote:
I believe Atheism is, fundamentally, a philosophically weak position (unlike agnosticism, which simply admits ignorance of things beyond the directly empirical and formally logical), as it tries to make positive claims to knowledge about things, such as the existence of God, that it has already admitted cannot be known.

This shows you know squat about atheism. It's not "there is no god", it's "until there's proof of god, I don't believe it." That's not philosophically weak, it's the rational default position. What's really philosophically weak is making up magical entities to explain away the things we can't explain with logic and evidence.

Its quite weak, philosophically, because it assumes that God, if he exists, has any intention based upon what he knows are our needs as human beings relative to spiritual growth, of providing the proof you claim would convince you in the way you would accept it. It may be that God has his own manner of revealing himself to an individual, and that this constitutes "proof", and he wants you to move outside of your box and into a different perceptual realm to attain that proof.

Why, after all, should God, if he exists, subscribe to your demands as to the nature of the proof? Perhaps he wants humans to explore and come to understand alternative means of perception and the acquiring of information?

[_Coggins7]

But why has the god idea been perpetuated? What appeal does it have?

There are multiple psychological advantages for believing in god, and escaping a fundamental aspect of one's personal responsibility is merely one of them. There are other avenues for escaping responsibility, too. I'm not saying there's a one to one relationship between god belief and irresponsibility, but there is certainly a relationship.

And that relationship is precisely what? Many of the greatest minds in human history have noted that disbelief in God is highly correlated with personal irresponsibility, and hence, Dostoevsky's famous quip.

You know, the idea that belief in God in some manner diminishes personal responsibility is just a crutch that props up the very real inability of some individuals to deal with the concept of God in an intellectually and psychologically mature manner. Personal responsibility is an individual characteristic that exist in certain people and not in others regardless of belief in God, but when the idea of God is substantially abandoned by a critical mass of a population, say, since the late sixties, there is a reason for the explosion of social pathology in that society as compared to previous eras. It was the nations that abandoned God--Socialist Russia and National Socialist Germany--that brought on the bloodiest century of all human history. It was the attempt to solve all human problems at home through the force of social engineering, social control, and political diktat, without God and without regard to his teachings, that destroyed the inner city black family, and launched the largely successful assault on the family, marriage, sexual morality, individual responsibility, and common civilized decency that now characterize much of American and western society.

It was the Atheists that gave us Buchenwald, not the Corrie Ten Boom's who suffered within them. It is the Atheists who have given us Socialism, Communism, National Socialism, Fascism (of which the previous three are all forms), the sexual revolution, the drug culture, The anti-human environmental movement and animal rights movement, our 50% divorce rate, our filled to capacity rehab centers, the exponential rises in violent crime beginning in the late sixties, our birth dearth (which threatens the entire western world with potentially catastrophic economic problems well within our life times), our infatuation with the killing of our unborn children; indeed, it is Christians and others of religious conscience who have stood against these things while Atheists have cheered them on.

Religious people are not perfect of course, and many Atheists are fine people, but the trends in a belief system; there implications for a society over time and the consequences of ideas are what matter.

[_Some Schmo]

I think the common misconception that theists have that without god, there would be anarchy speaks to the truth of what you're asserting, Bond. I've said it a million times before, and I'll say it again; a belief in god is a partial abdication of one's personal responsibility. Those who act morally without the great surveillance camera in the sky are the truly responsible ones. They do it out of a sense of personal morality and discipline rather than a fear of what their invisible daddy will think.

This is just smarmy Madalyn Murray O' Hareesque religion bashing. Do you actually have a philosophical argument, or a body of conceptually well organized principles that would demonstrate why your belief should be taken seriously, beyond a simplistic emotional prejudice against religion?

LOL

You wouldn't recognize a good philosophical argument if it dropped you on your head (and I suspect this has already happened to you several times). I've made the argument more times than I care to count. If you don't recognize it, that's your problem. I can't muster the energy to care what you think about it.

coggins7 wrote:
I believe Atheism is, fundamentally, a philosophically weak position (unlike agnosticism, which simply admits ignorance of things beyond the directly empirical and formally logical), as it tries to make positive claims to knowledge about things, such as the existence of God, that it has already admitted cannot be known.

This shows you know squat about atheism. It's not "there is no god", it's "until there's proof of god, I don't believe it." That's not philosophically weak, it's the rational default position. What's really philosophically weak is making up magical entities to explain away the things we can't explain with logic and evidence.

Its quite weak, philosophically, because it assumes that God, if he exists, has any intention based upon what he knows are our needs as human beings relative to spiritual growth, of providing the proof you claim would convince you in the way you would accept it. It may be that God has his own manner of revealing himself to an individual, and that this constitutes "proof", and he wants you to move outside of your box and into a different perceptual realm to attain that proof.

Why, after all, should God, if he exists, subscribe to your demands as to the nature of the proof? Perhaps he wants humans to explore and come to understand alternative means of perception and the acquiring of information?

Well isn't that convenient! God doesn't have to prove himself to anyone. Good for him. It's little wonder god belief is for the irresponsible. People are just modeling themselves after their imaginary god (but of course, we know that what's really going on is people are modeling their god after themselves).

Dude, if you want to live your life based on made up crap, be my guest. Just don't be surprised when people laugh at your assessment of what constitutes philosophical "strength."

LMAO

[_Some Schmo]

But why has the god idea been perpetuated? What appeal does it have?

There are multiple psychological advantages for believing in god, and escaping a fundamental aspect of one's personal responsibility is merely one of them. There are other avenues for escaping responsibility, too. I'm not saying there's a one to one relationship between god belief and irresponsibility, but there is certainly a relationship.

And that relationship is precisely what? Many of the greatest minds in human history have noted that disbelief in God is highly correlated with personal irresponsibility, and hence, Dostoevsky's famous quip.

You know, the idea that belief in God in some manner diminishes personal responsibility is just a crutch that props up the very real inability of some individuals to deal with the concept of God in an intellectually and psychologically mature manner. Personal responsibility is an individual characteristic that exist in certain people and not in others regardless of belief in God, but when the idea of God is substantially abandoned by a critical mass of a population, say, since the late sixties, there is a reason for the explosion of social pathology in that society as compared to previous eras. It was the nations that abandoned God--Socialist Russia and National Socialist Germany--that brought on the bloodiest century of all human history. It was the attempt to solve all human problems at home through the force of social engineering, social control, and political diktat, without God and without regard to his teachings, that destroyed the inner city black family, and launched the largely successful assault on the family, marriage, sexual morality, individual responsibility, and common civilized decency that now characterize much of American and western society.

It was the Atheists that gave us Buchenwald, not the Corrie Ten Boom's who suffered within them. It is the Atheists who have given us Socialism, Communism, National Socialism, Fascism (of which the previous three are all forms), the sexual revolution, the drug culture, The anti-human environmental movement and animal rights movement, our 50% divorce rate, our filled to capacity rehab centers, the exponential rises in violent crime beginning in the late sixties, our birth dearth (which threatens the entire western world with potentially catastrophic economic problems well within our life times), our infatuation with the killing of our unborn children; indeed, it is Christians and others of religious conscience who have stood against these things while Atheists have cheered them on.

Religious people are not perfect of course, and many Atheists are fine people, but the trends in a belief system; there implications for a society over time and the consequences of ideas are what matter.

I challenge you to prove that atheism is the source of any of this.