faucault----Groupe 4, Myles, Audrey, M-A, Alex, Romain

When reading the text of Foucault,
In Docile Bodies, Foucault focuses on the male soldier as being idealistic and puts emphasis on the training and discipline needed in order to master the human body. He shifts from a classical view of the ideal soldier being born a soldier to the image of the peasant becoming a soldier, placing importance on the control over the body over time, as well as the discipline needed. He finally compares these bodies to machines or parts of a greater machine. That human beings can be ordered and organized in a mechanical way in order to establish a strong control over these humans.
In panopticism, he focuses on the idea of a central building from which everything can be viewed, observed, policed and controlled. He gives examples of schools, prisons, hospitals and central administrative facilities order to illustrate the systems that have power. He also states that the more sophisticated a city is, the greater control methods it will have over its citizens and that even if certain rights and freedoms are permitted within that society, they can only be granted by allowing a greater amount of control in order to examine these citizens.
In The means of correct training, two terms(among others) arise more than others: power and discipline. Foucault takes a historical-philosophical analysis of these themes and their impact through time, paying special attention to the impacts of the changes that occurred during the eighteenth century. He believes that disciplinary power can be achieved by using specific tools such as Hierarchical observation, normalizing judgment, and combining them to produce examination.

In the cyborg Manifesto, Haraway tries to illustrate the metaphor that a cyborg is a cybernetic organism, a hybrid between a living organism and a machine, mixing social reality and fiction. She elaborates on this metaphor, bluring reality and fiction. She discards the Psycho-analysis that Freudians use, as well as marxian theory for her article. She states that producing universal theories can be a big error and have negative effects on how people will see and interpret these false realities, and that she would prefer to be a cyborg than a goddess.

Foucault & Haraway - Group 7

(Andrea, Alex, and Dominic)

One of the main ideas in Foucault's article is that people are formed and shaped through discipline, no matter what the environment (i.e. school, army, work, etc.). We are malleable beings that are governed by rules and regulations presented to us through a particular social context, and these rules are dictated by those in power. And given the right set of disciplinary conditions, an unlikely candidate (e.g. a mere peasant) can be molded into an efficient, functioning member of a greater system (e.g. soldier). An example would be the student and teacher relationship. If a student misses more than three classes, the teacher has the authority to fail a student, which will affect his conduct towards attendance and punctuality.

Another point brought up by Foucault is that we are all part of a system of organization. In this case, a society; furthermore, we are part of several other systems, such as an educational system, with certain rules, or family system, etc., all comprising this greater system of society. And finally, this system is governed and controlled by those in power or those who implement the discipline to control the society.

One of the questions that arose during the discussion is that, is there a pre-existing essence or core of a person before the implementation of discipline, or are we a product of the discipline and conditioning we receive? Is it possible to exist outside a given system, or any system for that matter? (answers pending....)

In the article by Haraway, she introduces the idea of a cyborg (half machine, half organic being) in an attempt to blur the lines of classifications that we use in our society (e.g. genders). She does this by creating ambiguity between reality and fiction, and using this dualistic being of organic and mechanical components to make us realize that when analyzing political or social policies, we must adopt a dualistic viewpoint, instead of a narrower, single viewpoint.

I believe the parallel between the two articles is that the body/person/entity is shaped by society and conditioning there-from. I don't believe we can ever escape it but only hope to manipulate so that it may one day suit our goals and needs.

Michael Foucault & Donna Haraway – Group 9

by:Sabreena, Kathryn, Laurence and Ryan


The body is a tool that can be used and controlled in many different ways, Discipline used to obtain power being the central focus of what these two texts are based upon.

In Foucault’s writing "Discipline and Punishment: The Birth of the Prison", discipline is the central idea on which all three selection of text is based upon. He describes the hierarchy of our social and political system, our hospitals and educational institutions. The method of embedding and nesting is an underlying principle in his quest for order “Discipline must be made national”.

“Walhausen spoke of “strict discipline” as an art of correct training”; Foucault refers to the military as the primary basis for discipline, both physically and mentally. The image of a solider throughout centuries has depicted a sense of strength and power; but with every strength, comes a weakness that is equally powerful “it reverses the course of the energy, the power that might result from it, and turns it into a relation of strict subjection”; in other words although the soldier may appear powerful he is limited to abilities he can perform because he must obey a higher authority, thus constraining his powers.
One example of this method that is portrayed in the form of media is the assimilation that the Borg species tries to replicate.
“The Borg or Borg Collective are a group of cyborgs in the Star Trek fictional universe. They are known both within and beyond Star Trek fandom for their relentless pursuit of what they want to assimilate, their rapid adaptability to almost any defense, and their ability to continue functioning after what may seem a devastating or even fatal blow seemingly unaffected. As such, the Borg has become a powerful symbol in popular culture for any seemingly unstoppable force against which "resistance is futile".

“A Cyborg Manifesto”

According to Haraway, a cyborg is the separation between our organic and artificial creation. She believes that the human race is increasingly adopting cyborg characteristics, integrating behavioral patters of a cyborg into our everyday lifestyle.
She talks of three boundary breakdowns relating to a cyborg, the boundary between:
Human and animal
Animal and machine
Physical and non-physical

Our intellectual side is slowly diminishing which will in turn lead to the destruction of humanity. As a society today we are becoming more dependant on modern day technology, one can not going a day without “logging on”, “downloading” or “texting”, we have become part of a greater network. The more machine one uses the less “human” one seems to be, you become dependant on the technology.

In relation to the two authors; Discipline, order and power are all present, the body’s capabilities is related to society and its surroundings.
Relating to Foucault and the military: the military dominates then incorporates to make one coalition much like the Nazi Germany structure.
Cyborgs bring order-military bring order- feminist bring order (trying to bring back the rights of women and equalize).
It can be said that one can not have something (a method) that is completely universal without having to exclude something. We can not argue that technology is cutting us off if we embrace it.

Cyborg and Docile bodies::::::G11

(Maziar, Ron, Yung-Hoon, Ramy)

Haraway introduces us the idea of the Cyborg, a cybernetic hybrid which is of the present and of the future (mostly a fact of present rather than future as she illustrates the three borders: animal and human, human and machine, physical and the non-physical). It doesn’t have a Freudian origin as it doesn’t depend on human reproduction and it is outside gender, it doesn’t wait to be saved by its father, neither does it seek completeness by searching for a mate. And we are becoming cyborgs. “The machine is not an 'it' to be animated, worshipped, and dominated”Haraway argues “The machine is us, our processes, an aspect of our embodiment”.

One of the major facts that Haraway points out is the “new industrial revolution” which results in the feminization of the laborious industry. According to the United Nations’ HDR (Human Development Reports) 69% of the labor forces are provided by women ages 15 and above and in areas like Africa, Scandinavia, or North America this rate exceeds 80%*. Today the women as a labor force have become what Foucault calls the docile body as they are subjected, used, transformed and improved. Women have become he focal subject of the advertisement and media; they are the main labors of the porn industry. Considering economy, poverty is feminized as well as the labor.

For Haraway, cyborg is both constructive and destructive. It builds as it destroys “machines, identities, ethnicities, categories, relationships”. But she would still “rather be a cyborg than a goddess.”

*http://hdr.undp.org/statistics/data/indicators.cfm?x=255&y=2&z=1

Panoptics

CTRL [SPACE]

DEAR ALL,

Picking up for our Foucault discussion, here is an interesting exhibition from the ZKM in 2004 on the Rhetorics of Surveillance. Curated by Thomas Y. Levin.

http://ctrlspace.zkm.de/e/

Foucault & Haraway :. Group One :. Mohannad, Jason, Etienne, Brent, Jonathan, Bastien

Foucault & Haraway :. Group One :. Mohannad, Jason, Etienne, Brent, Jonathan, Bastien


“The classical age discovered the body as object and target of power” Foucault says. Both writing from Michel Foucault and Donna Haraway discuss how the body
can be a conductor of power.

Foucault brings up the notion of the “docile body”. Docile bodies can be manipulated, used, modified as political puppets becoming a symbol of power. Those bodies can be manipulated with discipline and punishment. A body subject influenced by discipline not only does what one wishes, but it operates like one wishes.
Discipline works on the concept of a series, each individual must act correctly so the whole works correctly (One for all and all for one). It is by training individuals that they will render themselves useful for the group. The human body becomes a machine, by operating in space and time like he was disciplined. Discipline is a form of control over ones body, but it does not use force or violence, instead it creates a norm system, individuals desire to fit within the norm established. Those not fitting are punished so they comply. To separate the normal from the abnormal, surveillance is needed an integrated into the disciplinary system.

Donna Haraway uses the metaphor of the cyborg, part human and part machine body, to discuss about her understanding of women, technology and feminism. She says that the cyborg is an illegitimate offspring of militarism, but it has rebelled against his fathers. For her, cyborgs are not a thing of the future, they exist in the present. For the cyborg, there is a confusion of boundary between dualities like nature/culture, reality/virtual, organic/mechanic, etc. The cyborg is not an ideal we should worship, because it is in fact an aspect of our embodiment as a 20th – 21st century human being. The cyborg is not an attempt to regroup all feminists in a universal theory, because she says that there is nothing fundamental similar to which they can relate between each women. She explain how classes, races and gender is an attempt of separation created by the authority, we should rather identify with each other as cyborgs, because we all are to a degree or another.

At first glance, those two texts do not seem to have much in common. But here is how the two authors work can be associated in a singular way. The discipline and punishment system of Foucault have the power to transform individuals into perfect machines, but what happens to those who refuses to comply. Won’t they become legitimate offspring of their militaristic fathers? I say that where the disciplinary system ends, is where begins the cyborg.
Both writings discuss the body as machine; both seem to agree on the fact that following the system blindly does not make you an individual. The more you are “abnormal” the more you are free, while the cyborg is described as a dissident. The cyborg is a fusion of the natural organic with the cultural machine; this duality is what creates the cyborg. Foucault’s disciplined individuals act more like the machines they produce, then a human individual. “The tradition of the appropriation of nature as resource for the production of culture.” Is how would Haraway would describe it.
Other dualities are seen in both texts, the surveillance is used as a system of control over the workers, pupils, etc. but it also breaks down the line between public and private. Technology is also blurring public/private spaces, with technology permitting people to talk to the cell phone in public spaces, watching the same TV, radio channels as your neighbour etc.

Finally, I will end with a few issues remaining.

1. Can’t somebody choose to follow the rules of the system consciously? Or must he absolutely be under the influence of shadows or discipline to follow the system.

2. Isn’t surveillance a double-edge sword, since it can denounce the teacher as much as the student? So even if someone is archaically higher, he is still submitted to the regulations of the discipline, therefore not making him any freer than any other.

3. Is it really possible to deny one’s humanity and entirely become a machine like Foucault suggest it or will we eternally be a mix of culture and nature like the cyborg is ?

Michel Foucault and Donna Haraway – Group 6

By Maimouna,Daria,,Aaron,Anouk and Ghina.

“This book is intended as a correlative history of the modern soul and of a new power to judge.” Foucault (Discipline and Punish)

“Discipline and Punish” analyzes the concept of punishment in society and examines how it affects individuality.

In the part entitled “Docile Bodies”, Foucault describes the ideal soldier of the seventeenth century, to show how the body is trained to achieve docility through forces of discipline and control. He also finds the roots of discipline in monasteries and armies where the notions of self-control and the obedience to rules extended throughout the centuries with institutions such as schools, prisons and hospitals into a new form of controlling people. This new form of control is based on the organization and regulation of space and time in which the individual lives. A space is divided into smaller parts or cells and is based on the idea of a series, and Time is divided in the same way. The disciplines do not only calculate (like cl
ocks) but regulate time and space as the individual experiences them. So regulating space and time affects and controls the way in which we act and think and is a very empowering strategy.

In “The means of correct training”, Foucault’s disciplinary power is based on three elements: observation, normalization and examination.
On observation, Foucault states that by being constantly observed you can be forced to do something. The perfect disciplinary institution is that in which everything can constantly be seen at once.
Examination, involves both the process of observation and normalization, where a person can be analyzed and compared to a “norm”. The idea of “norm” is a form of oppression, where the normal becomes the good and the abnormal becomes the bad or what is to be punished and corrected. Here the individual is an unnatural tool constructed by power. Through discipline, individuals are formed out of a group. The more abnormal and excluded a person is, the more individual he becomes.

In the following section, on “Panopticism”, the Panopticon (similar to the commonly known concept of Big Brother) is a tool of empowerment developed out of the need for surveillance and discipline; it is a building with a tower at the center from which it is possible to observe everything at once.
To introduce the concept of the Panopticon, Foucault examines the measures taken to protect a society from a plague, and how the Panopticon allows power to function efficiently.


“I would rather be a cyborg than a goddess”
Haraway (A Cyborg Manifesto)

In “A Cyborg Manifesto” Haraway believes that humans are increasingly becoming cyborgs. What is for many a form of destruction of humanity is for her a hope for a new postmodern, feminist and socialist vision in the white capitalist and patriarchal society we live in. For Haraway, a goddess is a creation of man,a mystical and passive representation of the woman, strongly related to nature and earth. Whereas, the Cyborg is an extension of the self and it is a creature with no origins, that transgresses the boundaries between dichotomies such as animal and human, machine and life, mind and body, female and male…It is an empowering tool to fight against the ideas of race, gender and class. In the future, technology will shape a new world, a new system where representation will be dominated by simulation, reproduction by replication, realism by science fiction…

In both readings we can see how the authors relate to the body as a creation of society and its environment.For Foucault, discipline shapes and transforms the body into a tool of power, and creates the individual by introducing the idea of the “norm”. Therefore, the body becomes a construction of society shaped by oppression and unnatural processes. This shows a relationship with Harway’s feminist approach which considers that the body and the representation that society has of women is a pure creation of men and his white capitalist patriarchal system.

Week 2, group 1:: Private Property of the Virtual MEDIAcrity

Mohaned, Etienne, Jon Kebe, Bastien, Jason, Brent

Again, we face the challenge of interrelating a masterpiece of political position and innovation, such as Marx’s ultimate views on private property, with a very valid and important reflection (Oosterling). Then again, after sharing a few ideas amongst ourselves, it is not hard to see where the relation is, in terms of access to the most precious thing there is in the world: information. (Oosterling himself says that “Knowledge empowers subjects”).

We frequently feel the need to be consumed by society. In the intro of Oosterling’s article, the subjected individual constantly feels the need to e-mail his peers and/or become centered around communications, etc. When he does not have these technologies available, ‘things break down’, feeling incomplete. When you take away a cellular phone, it may feel like you’re loosing your leg. Communism’s objectives: equality, and to satisfy all classes. The same objective is shared with new media and the internet.

We are useless if we are not connected, just like the nodes. A laborer is made alien to himself because everything he produces is taken away from him and does not belong to him "he looses his rightful existence". A laborer works as a medium to produce something that might be tangible, but that it does not necessarily have an effect on him. Just like we have become nodes of our society and rely excessively on each other in crazy levels of inter-connectivity.
The more a man works as a laborer, the less he has to consume for himself because his "product and labor" are estranged from him. So this will inevitably create a gap between the lower and higher class which will only get bigger with time and the evolution of mass production, and will lead to the uprising of the lower class against the upper class.

Private property becomes a product and casue of "alienated labor", which cause disharmony . The workers are therefore seen as machines and not individuals, this is why they can be so easily be removed \nand replaced, because you always can find a guy who you know can be qualified to do the exact thing the previous guy was doing. Alienated labor is seen as the consequence of market product, the division of labor and the division of society into "antagonistic classes". Then again, there are parallelisms between Private Property, Capitalism and the massified access to the internet and its economic repercussions in the daily lives of our node-icized selfs: “Spam creates choices. It makes us want what we could not even imagine. Telling is selling. Information pays off, because it connects. The will to be informed turns modern interiority inside out: We do no longer enjoy knowledge, but sheer access.”

GROUP 12

Group 12 – Alex, Jonathan, Greg

Both articles are essentially discussing situations,
or possible situations which are very idealistic in
nature. What we mean is that, Marx’s communism, as
perfect as it may sound on paper.. the total removal
of personal property (personality – we’re not making a
direct link, property = personality) in order to
create a totally shared, communal environment, as well
as Oosterling’s description of machine- and
corporation-based mediocrity, are very good
propositions and thoughts, but they inevitably fail to
some degree because of the sheer nature of human
beings. As social and environmentally conscious
beings, each of us still have our own individuality –
which will eventually lead to different goals,
aspirations and inevitably different ways of leading
our lives. While we can agree that our society is
losing track of some basic human necessities,
interactions and experiences.

Machines cannot replace human interaction and human
relationships. They merely exist to make out lives
easier, and for some reason, in the process or making
things simple, they’ve created an entirely new
problematic and way of life. Information is readily
available, stores are always open, machines turn on at
the snap of a finger. We’ve become a society living
for instant gratification, materials belongings and
wire-connected interpersonal relationships. Without
going to the other extreme and sharing everything with
everybody; we need to find a balance between our
connected and physical-human-distant world and Marx’s
utopian scenario. We can’t share everything, we can’t
all work in the same way for the same purpose, but we
definitely can be a little more sensitive to each
other’s needs and desires.

Groupe 4---- Marc-André, Audrey, Romain, Alex, Miles----

Just before i begin, i just want to inform you that i’m french, so you will be nice to excuse my english mistakes. I will do a resume of what we talked together but also I will put some personal experience to lean our thesis.

The vision of Marx on communism and private property look really nice and attractive at the first glance. It’s an idealist vision of, how good the world could be. But if you consider the human in his true nature, you realize that the thesis of Marx is totally utopique. Generaly, human are selfish, they will always put themselves before others. It’s sad but it’s true. I don’t think a society without materialism will never exist. The normal man always want more than his neighbor. Also the people who are attract to lead are also attract by power and wealth. So the man will always be bribable. Human are human, and human are imperfect. The system of Marx should only works if all human was good and pure, and unfortunatly it is impossible. This is why since the beginning of humanity there is war on the planet.

Moreover, when people work for governement instead of working for a private compagnie, they work less harder. I know, I worked for gorvernment since 8 years. And I saw how they managed cash and human ressources. Nobody really care, cause if the things goes bad, nobody will loose money. They are not conscious that they play with their own money, cause they are not directly affected by the lost of this money.

In the other texte, like Marx, Oosterling describe how we are dependant of material, but particulary of technologie. He also declare that our lifes are miserable cause we live within a grim routine. I do not totally disagree with him. Since our birth our lives have been trace. We gonna do x years of school, x years of work and after, retirement. And if you do not want to enter that system, it is too bad for you.

If we want to create a better world for our child we have to figure a system somewhere between the capitalist and the Marx world. But the wealthy owners will not fall so easly.

Communism and Mediocrity :::::::G11

Communism, Marx’s manifestation against capitalism and in the support of the working class as a whole without any kind of prejudice, a way of overcoming the envy and the greed caused by the private property, is a way of freeing ourselves from the need, those of the elite which is caused by greed and those of the poor class which is of the greatest wealth.
Marx believes that communal possessing is a way of experiencing freedom-- Freedom from the need of having and possessing material. In his view the main purpose of material is using them rather than owning them, and this draws us to the Ooseterling’s article where he explains human’s dependency on their modern equipment. He describes our need to the technology and new media where we feel free as long as all these technology function smoothly. We depend on these technologies so much that they end up owning us now.
Comparing communism and mediocrity, they both serve as a way of creating equality where in communism this balance and equality happens by taking away the possession of the capital, but mediocrity creates this balance by enabling every individual to buy it material needs. In another perspective it is communal as everybody has almost the same share of the technology.
Another aspect that both Marx and Oosterling argue is the position of the religion in their theories. Communism practices atheism less abstract and more directly bent on action. And technology produces knowledge and enlightenment in a way that frees the man from the determination of the heteronymous powers.
The question that we asked each other at the end of our group discussion was that, considering China, is the communist regime practical? Seeing china’s development and its process of becoming world’s biggest power, is communism the answer? How does Chinese people who are the one who experience this system feel?

Unlawful Combatants Are in the Dark - Group 2/ Week 2

by Anthony, Elio, Raed and Sabine

In “The Republic” Plato develops this idea of the perfect warrior and what is needed for educating “him”. It is quite understandable that in the time that “The Republic” was written, the search for the perfect warrior was fundamental. It was a period where the Greeks fashioned super-human pseudo-gods and encouraged many principles such as Apollonian and Dionysian notions. The first represents light and the other darkness, these notions that describe the duality needed for “men” to think and determine their actions and were also praised in Nietzsche’s Ubermensch. The play of light and darkness was evoked many times to describe the ascent and descent of the prisoner from reality to darkness and vice-versa. This idol (perfect warrior) should be able to exit the cave and embrace reality (the light) and become a higher person. However to maintain his true status, he should be able as well to descend back to the darkness and share his ideas with other without imposing them onto them. Once that is done, he can return back to light and restart this routine. This educated person also will learn to rationalize using all his senses, for an object can be distinguished as it is, but has more to it than its image.

We believe this text translates to how a society should be in Plato’s mind. It is what every society should be, but is impossible to achieve. The “Republic” tends to reflect our modern society and its values which is quite amusing when noticing when it was written. Additionally, it is also depressing to see how little our minds have evolved. We grow up with idealistic fantasies which are thrown upon us and question what kind of relationship a person should have with society: how should one balance “himself” in it. The more you confide to not doing, the more you are being controlled and ignorantly pushed to accept a postmodern environment where “everything” esteemed by society is “cool”.

Susan Sontag describes in her text “Regarding the Torture of Others” this effect as “culture of shamelessness”. It is a society that thinks of itself as elite and that others should emulate its ways of life to become the perfect being / warrior/ “American”. Conversely, all those that do not follow are lesser people or can be described as “unlawful combatants” in Sontag’s text. She also talks about how Americans are reaching a level of self glory so extreme that they are becoming oblivious with the rest of humanity. A U.S citizen can firmly say that he is not a “human” but an American. Consequently, when scandals such as the Abu Ghraib pictures came out, they refused to acknowledge the action, and were more appalled by the presence of the pictures then what they truly portrayed. They have created turmoil, and in the now, red face Americans, who believe that any action made on their part can be exempt.

Have the Americans forgotten to come back in the cave? They truly believe that they are separate from others, and even dare to evoke different words so that their meanings are the purest. People cannot run away from their true nature. They are not perfect, and if put to the test, flaws will appear. Our access to media (digital cameras in the case of American soldiers) has made it quite easy for these humanistic flaws to appear. People are trying to stay in their selective realities where all is good and ignore the rest, but like trash that’s pilling up around the earth, at some point they will smell the stench and realize they’re realities are not that pretty.

* http://www.stanford.edu/~pj97/Nietzsche.htm

A CAST ON OUR SHADOWS (Group 1)

Posted by Group 1: Jason, Brent, Mohammad, Etienne, Bastien, Jonathan K.

Born in Athens or Aegina in 427 or 428 BCE, Plato was an incredibly influential Greek philosopher. One of his most revolutionary and complete texts can be found in book eight of The Republic, an open interpretation of the shadows and realities in education. Paralleling to Plato’s ideologies, in a modern outlook, Susan Sontag’s article from the New York Times Regarding the Tortures of Others (2005), delves into visual cultures and the images impact on our shadows. The following will discuss our groups understanding on both articles, and will furthermore discuss the significant relationship and intertwining between the two texts.

Transcribed in Book VII of The Republic, the main philosophical standpoint expressed at the forefront in Plato’s writings are the limitedness we see in our shadows of truth, only understanding a mere part of them and not the entire picture. In his writings, Plato explains a few people have seen the light, representing the “truth”, and as a result have acquired a better understanding of reality then those inhabitants still chained inside the cave. Plato’s conception of truth and reality can be applied to our modern world in many significant ways. The concept and purpose of war, which has been a frequent and ongoing event between many nations and cultures in the world throughout history, consists of two opposing sides whom so passionately believe that their political and religious viewpoints are how a nation (or the entire world) is to be structured. According to Plato’s philosophies, are these two opposing sides to be interpreted as two separate distinct shadows? Or is one side closer to the truth than the other? At one instance, Plato says that an enlightened prisoner must go back to the cave to share his knowledge. But what if he does not? Will he be tempted to use his greater understanding of our world to control, use, and exploit them, not sharing his same knowledge? Knowledge is power.

Photography has become such an important part of our everyday life that we feel we have to take pictures of everything out of the ordinary; it is used as a visual memory (since we respond to a photograph’s worth as a 1000 words). We function differently everyday thanks to photography, posing with our photography grin: “To live is to be photographed…but to live is also to pose” (Sontag, 2005) The fact that we can see so much thanks to photography affects our mental limits of what is acceptable and what is not. For example, what was used to be seen as pornography is now considered as a college prank (ex: piling bodies on top of each other). Relating to Plato’s text, photography can be compared to the shadows on the wall, where we see, learn and believe the presented images confronted to us. Accepting and believing its “truths”, the more different shadows one is exposed to, the more consciously aware you think you know about life. In Sontag’s article, the photographs she refers to are those that depict torture ad rape. As prohibited and condemned by several international treaties throughout history, torture becomes, through what photography has exposed, an opposite reality to that sold by its perpetuators.

Plato’s discussion on justice, systems of government and behaviors of aristocracy, tyranny, oligarchy, democracy and tyranny well forecasts today’s modern world structure, or as the philosopher refers to as the “habit”. Plato’s philosophies, expressed in The Republic, has a considerable relationship with Susan Sontag’s article from the New York Times “Regarding the Tortures of Others”, an interpretation of the degrading and provoking images taken place at the Abu Gharib prison in Iraq. In Plato’s philosophy, he effectively uses the sun as a metaphor to represent the mediated images being imposed on our shadows: “The prison-house is the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun, and you will not misapprehend me if you interpret the journey.” (Plato, 4) Giving light to something that we have never witnessed ‘nor experienced, the images that are presented to us by the media, shape our understanding of a specific subject matter, as it becomes our only recollection of them. Our vast dependence on visual culture not only poses a great influence on our views and beliefs of the world inside and outside an individual’s culture, they also play a significant impact on the development on our identity and “shadows”. Major media networks and corporations such as CNN, CBC, and Al-Jazeera all take advantage of their impact on culture by broadcasting a biased viewpoint, always keeping their target audience in mind. Images of tyranny and war stimulate dissimilar emotions on opposing cultures. Awakening, shocking, and emotionally wounding the viewer, these images are incredibly subjective. For example, CNN’s broadcast of the Iraq war is mostly interested in the American’s perspective of it, and most certainly not of the Islamic world. Eclipsing other forms of understanding and remembering, the only recollection one can generate is represented solely through the images we see: “When you have acquired the habit, you will see ten thousand times better than the inhabitants of the den, and you will know what the several images are, and what they represent, because you have seen the beautiful and just and good in their truth.” (Plato, 8) An experience can make us understand. The image does something else: it haunts us.

Our perception of reality is determined by what is real to us individually. The cave, as Plato mentions, is comparable to a country on the opposite end of the world with a different government, laws and way of life than the outside world which is comparable to the other country which is perceived as our reality. Unless you see the other world for yourself it’s only a shadow to you as its not a fact. All images are deceiving, because we are not able to decipher the whole truth for ourselves until it is actually experienced first hand.

Plato and Susan Sontag :::::::::::: Group 11

(Maziar, Ron, Rammy, Jo)

The allegory of the cave serves very well as a metaphor of media, where everything is filtered and then distributed to people. Media serves as the wall. But the question is: with the new media and the new technologies, is this process of filtering still possible? Do we have the access to reality now?
The other important point in the Socrates idea is how he admires dialectics and communications, which to him is the main way of transferring reality or at least a sense of reality to those in the cave. And this is one of the main responsibilities of the media today. But another question that raises here is that “are the people (prisoners) incapable of accepting truth-- some thing that they don’t know what it is? And that’s where the person who has seen the light has to justify himself, as it happened to those who took the photographs in the Abu Quraib prison. They were prosecuted just like those who committed the crimes and observing U.S. officials, they were considered the most responsible rather than those who were committing the crime in the pictures. So is it necessary for the “prisoners” to know the truth? Won’t they be happier not knowing that the shadows are not actual reality (As many people, particularly Americans, don’t bother themselves observing politics)?
Considering education, Socrates mentions that instead of Compulsion, the best way of finding the natural bent, is to teach with amusements rather than force, the same element which was used in the Triumph of the Will, and the military advertises in the local Medias.
Now is this “Perfect society” that Socrates illustrates, practical? We believe, as Carl Marx’s theory of communism was beautiful in theory but corruptive in practice, this perfect empire is also going to fail because it contradicts the equilibrium laws.

Repost_Group 4 (Miliana, Josiane, Marie-Claude, Alexandre O'B.)

Plato and Susan
Plato:

This text is all about limited knowledge and unique representation system. When he gives the example the “cave people” he emphasize on the fact that they do not have access to real representation, because those poor people have a single representation which is an illusion of the shadow. The reflection is the rich people. Plato believed that the access to knowledge made you enlighten to the true representation of things. And that is just then that you could get out of the cave and see the real truth.
You have to be sensitive to your ignorance.

Truth out text

Compared to the other text, the knowledge is no longer limited and there’s more than one representation. Now that you have access to this information, you understand now that you cannot get access to an ultimate and global truth. You can be anything. And it is like the representation of the cavern, where finally with the new media, we are able to get out of this darkness.
Just as the photography published about soldiers in Iraq, finally put a light on what was really going on in that country, which was opposite to what the Bush administration had been trying to tell.

website up

Hi All,
The class website is up at http://classes.hybrid.concordia.ca/~cart255.

Also, please use the main blog address for postings of reading summaries. I noticed
one of the groups made their own.

Best
cs.

Week 1 - Plato (Republic) vs Susan Sontag (Greatest Democracy)

Dominic, Andrea and Alex

For us, the Allegory of the Cave was a direct image for media. People have a limited vision of the world and might only see shadow (media). When looking at shadow (media) people will often take it for the truth. The affect, when looking at shadow is not always representative of the actual truth as the seen shadow and it source are not always the same thing. Since everyone believe shadow to be truth, it is very hard for one single individual to turn to unbelief. As Socrates suggest the cave to be comparison with ignorance, he does offer a logical way for mans to ''escape'' from this cave and even to build the ideal Republic along the way. Could this point to an ideal use of media?

In the later part of Plato Allegory of the Cave, Socrates tell us how the ideal citizen should be and how a great Republic should communicate. While he does make some really good points, after reading the second lecture, we realize a contrast between what would be an ''ideal communication'' in an ''ideal Republic'' compared to the ''current communication'' in the ''greatest democracy''. In ''Regarding the Torture of Others'', Susan Sontag show a huge gap between ideal citizen and the current reality by presenting the recent ''public relation disaster'' with the Abu Ghraib prison. While Plato citizen are virtuous, American politicians are clearly not and the ideal communication does not take place. The media is not ''logical''. With the expansion of internet and digital storage device, she suggest the world media to be much more chaotic as everyone send message to everyone.

In conclusion our group was divided. Is Plato ''enlightenment'' and ideal Republic possible or not? Some though the human nature was savage and violent and that perfect communication would never be possible (media would always be part shadow). For now anyway, media seems full of noise and for us to study/understand it, we will need to approach it accordingly.

cart 255_new media theory