Last One! ...

In our final class discussion of cmc300 we finished talking about our theorists Michel Foucault and rounded up with Arjun Appadurai. Foucault argues how our society is constantly being watched upon nowadays through means of technology. "Our society is one not of spectacle, but of surveillance." (101) We got into talking about how we sometimes or probably most of the time aren't even aware that we are being surveyed. In the airport for example I believe Rich mentioned how he went through security and was stuck in an x-ray machine with out even knowing...we are put on camera and in data more than we know it. We related this further to Jameson who believes that we live in a society where we don't want to merely be entertained by TV but we want to be in it! This is evident in Foucault's next quote that "we are neither in the amphitheatre, nor on the stage, but in the panoptic machine, invested by its effects of power, which we bring to ourselves since we are part of its mechanism." (101) Again we don't want to just watch, we want to be a part of 'it'...from here on we came to talk about Appadurai.

Appadurai's text I found to be very interesting. He mainly discusses how our global culture has changed so much with the rise of technology and hence transportation etc. He mainly points out our differences in other words disjunctures. Additionally how 'everything' including economy, technology, finance etc. are so complex nowadays with pastiche. I quote from Appadurai "the complexity of the current global economy has to do with certain fundamental disjunctures between economy, culture, and politics that we have only begun to theorize." (588) Appadurai argues that we haven't even 'begun' to understand or have been able to theorize are complex economy, culture and politics nowadays. And I wonder if we will ever even be able to...

Last Post Class Post! due 12/5

As we wrapped up the semester with our discussion yesterday on Appadurai I took comfort in knowing this was a pausing point in my CMC career studying theory. Appadurai really came from a perspective that we have seen in ways throughout the semester but that seemed to make more sense to me. Besides the intense and appealing conversation we had yesterday, I really tried to use my own experiences to understand Appadurai which did not seem to work until we unpacked him in class. I really agree with his notion that until we as a society start thinking in new ways we won’t be able to see how rapidly and to what level the world we live in is changing. If we recognize that thinking in new ways can help us have a better future within our individual communities and as an international whole. Perhaps thinking in these new ways and understanding future changes are possible in these ways before they actually occur we can save ourselves from a the culture of fear that Zizek refers to. If we agree as a world to open our eyes to the potential future changes, possibly we will start to yearn more for the real than the fiction and escape the passivity Eco mentions as a way of life today when it comes to many situation and experiences we endure. Personally, I truly believe that with Appadurai’s notion of a new way of thinking we can really connect individuals as a larger more thriving community that goes beyond Poster’s idea of connectivity into something much more. It is amazing how much more can be done when multiple people do it together versus one personal alone. Together can make a huge difference in all aspects of life, in our world a community creates everything whether it is language or ideology!

Cixous

Cixous
I found that Helene Cixous text from ‘Sorties’ eye opening. She talks about male privilege and how usually the male is dominant and therefore active while the female is passive. This also made me think of certain words in language today to describe women. The term ‘women” has the word men in it and the term “female” has the word male in it. Even when describing this gender, the male word remains dominant. Then we have this fixed notion of a male and female being together. Generally when this idea is broken, people start criticizing those who do not fit this ideal. They become labeled as homosexual, bisexual, transvestites and so on. Cixous defines bisexuality in two ways. First, as a fantasy of unity, a person not made up of two genders but rather two halves. Second, as the “multiplication of the effects of desire’s inscription on every part of the body and the other body.” (159) Cixous goes on to say that the woman is the only one who benefits from this. Males are terrified of homosexuality. I find this notion interesting. Personally, I think that female bisexuals are much less criticized then male bisexuals. This is largely due to the fact that a female and male together is natural and a female and female together is sexy. Males do not judge females yet they judge themselves when they are the ones with another person of the same gender. Males have always had this sense of being dominant, in power, and having possession. Homosexuality endangers this because it makes them appear passive thus no longer in control. It is unfortunate that there is this double standard in society today. Cixous goes on to describe feminine strength and liberation. The voice of women has almost always fallen on the deaf. The body, breath and speech of women needs to be un-censored. Personally I agree with this. In CMC 100, we did a magazine analysis where even though the female was the only one present in the advertisement, she was still somehow being censored. Whether this was by not showing her eyes, having her mouth covered, or being depicted as an object, females were still be shown as passive. This is something that needs to change. Many magazines talk about how females show feel empowered and independent yet the photos in the magazines contradict this.

Apparduri pre class

The Appadurai reading reminded me of the notion that the only argument in our society comes from difference of opinion. Although technology has made it easy for us to travel and virtually experience other cultures, at the same time it has encouraged globalization and a homogenization of cultures. Some would call it Americanization! When spreading our culture we tend to spread big brands like Wal Mart and fast food companies like McDonalds. These businesses are so economically viable that they cause local businesses to shut down and for countries and regions to loose parts of their culture. Through this type of globalization, companies create monopolies in almost every industry. Causing local farms, shops, and manufacturers to shut down and be at loss for a job. This also demolishes the land and is harmful to our environment. When big companies have control, it is easy for them to advertise the hegemonic narrative and endorse a consumerist capitalist society.

Appadurai pre-class

For Thursday’s class we were asked to read, “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy”, by Arjun Appadurai. He talks about and relates to many theorists we have covered thus far. According to Appadurai the imaginary is made up of five dimensions of global natural flow; 1. Ethnoscapes, mediascapes, technoscapes, finanscapes, and ideoscapes. He discusses imaginary by saying, “the image, the imagined, the imaginary- these are all terms that direct us to something critical and new in global cultural processes: the imagination as a social practice”. This quote reminds me a lot of Baudrillard, because he talks a lot about the imaginary as well and how it plays a big role in society. We like to use our imagination, because we like it better than the real. This is because the imaginary comes across so much more appealing than the real. Appadurai also says how people around the globe live in imaginary worlds, and Baudrillard would agree with that statement also. Baudrillard believes that sometimes imitations are created to look so realistic that it is hard to determine what is real and what is fake, to the extent that we start to live in these imaginary worlds, because we cannot tell the difference. Appadurai also claims that there has been a “technological explosion” in the past century (including trains, airplanes, telephone, computers, and internet), which has created a deeper level of communication…or does it? People would think that this has created a way to share culture with more people, but really it just Americanizes other places and cultures throughout the world. He gives the example of people from the Philippines’ “affinity for American popular music” and how they appreciate songs from our past almost more than we appreciate them.

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Appadurai Post

In his writing, Appadurai claims "the central problem of today's global interactions is the tension between cultural homogenization and cultural heterogenization". Now if i'm correct I'd say the first part (cultural homogenization) deals with this whole notion of 'sameness' and everything being reproduced/copied/simulated/redistributed in our society. Of course this conflicts with more grassroots strategies and individual efforts to change or redefine objects, ideas, places, etc. in our communities (cultural heterogenization). He says most often this argument for homogenization often dribbles down talking about Americanization and 'commoditization', two topics we have discussed over the course of the semester/relate to CMC key words. One thing I found interesting that Appadurai wrote was how "as rapidly as forces from various metropolises are brought into new societies they tend to become indigenized in one or another way"...we see this in music, architecture, media, science, spectacles and even in terrorism.


He claims our new global cultural economy has to be understood as a complex, overlapping, disjunctive order that cannot be understood by previous models. All these variables have to do with tensions between economy, culture, and politics. Appadurai then proposed a framework for exploring these 'disjunctures'  by analyzing five dimensions of global 'cultural flow': ethnoscapes, mediascapes, technoscapes, finanscapes, and ideoscapes. Now this is where I got confused, I'm not sure I understood what the technoscape or ideoscape (or maybe it was a different 'scape') was necessarily trying to protect/call for, I felt like some overlapped and were worded in ways that made it hard to figure out what Appadurai was trying to say, even after each one's brief introduction. Although I'm sure if they're of any importance then we'll figure it out in class tomorrow.


My favorite quote of the whole piece/every reading since test #2
"one man's imagined community is another man's political prison"

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