Brain Drain Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Michel Foucault’

It’s a glorious summer vacation filled with already profuse blooms. We have three nests on the house, have been visited by?our bear,?and a rock wall?is slowly but surely materializing?around the entire length of our driveway thanks to my two very rough and beaten hands.?

Still, with this wonderful flurry of spring activity, the brain doesn’t have an off switch. Listening to Car Talk on Sunday’s leisurely?drive had me thinking about?theory?as Ray posed?this week’s puzzler:

In 1951, when I was 10, our folks told me that Aunt Bertha would not be coming for Christmas …. Before the week was out she was dead. The county medical examiner of course had to list a cause of death on her death certificate. Now I can’t be 100% sure, but I think that Aunt Bertha could very well have been the last person in the U.S. to die of, and have this listed as his or her official cause of death. There were many Americans who died of the same thing in 1951, and before, but none after. The question is, what did Aunt Bertha die of?

The answer?

RAY: Aunt Bertha died of a rare disease called? old age. Starting in 1952, the Bureau of Health Statistics which is part of the CDC, decided that you couldn’t just die of old age, you had to have a reason, like you fell on your knitting needles, got hit by a bread truck, or something like that. I think they listed 130 official reasons for death … They wanted everyone to be pigeon-holed. So Aunt Bertha, because she died a week after Christmas (She could have died like at 11:59 on New Year’s Eve) could have been the last person in 1951 to die of old age.

TOM: What do you do, pick something out of a hat?

RAY: Yeah. In fact when you’re about 75 they send you a flier: Please pick a cause of death from the list below.

So, what would the theorists say? Foucault is rolling in his grave,?pigeonholed?as an AIDS victim, the last declarative statement of his identity within a legal and medical system of labels. Baudrillard’s cause of death? The murder of his reality. Any other determination?is a hyperreality for those of us left behind?while he escapes into the ether. And Derrida??He’s haunting?Albany’s student ghetto as giant brain stripped of the assumptions of doom drawn from words like pancreatic cancer. I think I bumped into his ghost outside Valentine’s some years ago. Then again, maybe I just had one too many Jack and Cokes and was feeling a wee bit too brilliant.

That’s as deep as I intend to get today. The sun is calling and there are giant rocks to be rolled into position. (Gravity is my greatest tool.) I’ll be back when I’m not diligently concentrating on keeping my fingers… or soaking in the hot tub.?Is?having my life back?really as?decadent as it feels??I have become human once more.

These?are merely a few thoughts that presented easily for me.

Foucault and Cho sittin’ in a tree…
There are SO MANY different types of sexual discourse within Cho’s performance of I’m the One that I Want: gay, straight, drunk, slutty, medical – and people pay to hear all about it. We are not a prudish population overall. (In fact, after posting?about foot lickers and 7 feet of sex, my?blog traffic?went through the roof.)

The most pertinent point where Cho and Foucault align is the moment when?Cho’s small desire in the grand scheme of her identity briefly defines?her identity as a whole. Cho tells her mother that she?has a?sexual encounter?with a woman while working on a lesbain cruise line. This is not typical behavior for Cho and she asks herself if she’s gay or straight. She decides she’s just slutty but her mother needs to classify Cho and calls her machine asking:

Are you gay? Are you gay? Are you gay? If you don’t pick up the phone, you’re gay. Okay, you’re gay.” Her mother then continues with “Why can’t you talk to Mommy? Mommy is so cool… Mommy know all about the gay!”

Suddenly, Cho is seen differently through her mother’s eyes in light of a singular experience. Cho’s mother is interesting in that she is deeply effected by racism when she arrives in the States in the 60′s. Knowing that classification is hurtful and dangerous, she reproduces the same behavior with her daughter. I’m seeing both Althusser and Foucault here. Ideologies are in place to perpetuate the system.

Butler and?Cho sitting in a tree…
So, Cho’s?performance includes?the roles of both men and women. How do we, as an audience, know which role she is playing? Gender roles are important here. Cho seems to prove Butler’s point that gender is imposed, learned and performed. In playing the role of a man, Cho displays mannerisms belonging to that gender. When she depicts her gay male friends, she displays?more forced feminine gestures as performed by these men. Certainly, these performances play on stereotypes, but Butler would say that stereotypes are as false as the gender we assume. Butler would also use the example above to say that there is no true identity/soul. There are just chaotic desires within us that are reigned in by social expectations. These expectations are?placed upon us?and we, in turn, place them upon ourselves.

FOUCAULT
Michele Foucault seems to be an obvious lens through which to view?the faculty?readings at the?College of Saint Rose English Symposium. Sex was in the air – everywhere – although the act itself wasn’t specifically taking place (as far as I know).

Foucault says:

According to the new pastoral, sex must not be named imprudently, but its aspects, its correlations, and its effects must be pursued down to their slenderest ramifications: a shadow in a daydream, an image too slowly dispelled, a badly exorcised complicity between the body’s mechanics and the mind’ complacency: everything had to be told. (1652)

To determine virtue, deviation from virtue was categorized and discussed ad nauseaum by the 17th century Catholic clergy. Preoccupation in the name of censorship fostered discourse, bringing?deviancy to the forefront of the mind. And now for a fine example…

FOOT LICKERS
Captain Dan Nester read his personal essay on foot licking. The story goes like this:?Nester’s ex girlfriend from way back, Anna, confessed to Nester on their third date that a night guard?paid ten bucks to?lick her toes at work.?For years, Nester has been turning this situation over in his head, categorizing the act as fetishism, prostitution, pondering the deviancy, or not. Eventually?he?uses?the technique on?his wife’s?feet as they lay on the couch at opposite ends. He does this to annoy her and it works. At the point where?she kicks him in the?nose and he gushes blood, I laughed so hard that I choked on?a potato chip and had to leave the room. You’ll have to ask him about the rest.

Foucault and Foot Licking
Did Anna feel the need to confess because she felt?”foot licking on the sly” was erotic and thus virtueless? Who knows. One thing is clear. Nester wrote from the perspective of one who is now talking about this fetish in an analytical fashion, categorizing the desire as deviant and yet fascinated by it all the same. The very thing he has been taught to?classify outside of?”normative” is now an obsession. Poor guy.

7 FOOT SEX
Doug Butler read about a 7 foot tall piece of art stored in his house. The story goes like this: The?painting features the larger-than-life image of his artist friend’s self portrait. She is?wearing a sequin bikini standing along side her lover. He’s?wearing?a Speedo. The art doesn’t fit anywhere in his house other than the main living room wall. It resides there for several months. All the while, knowing that he has this depiction of sexuality prominently displayed, the narrator wonders what people will think of him.?Abhorring window treatments, he fills his picture windows with plant life to avoid an arrest?for indecent exposure,?corrupting the?children attending school across the street. His ways of dealing with visitors and their reactions is truly funny stuff.

Foucault and 7 Feet of Sex
Although it isn’t part of our assigned reading, this reminds me of Foucault’s comparison of the Panopticon prison to our social structure. Butler writes from the point of view of a person who is self policed because?he is?never sure who is watching. There could be nobody in his house, or even at his window, and yet the presence of a sexual depiction in art makes him wholly self conscious.

SIGNIFICANCE
So, as a result of all this Catholic categorization and policing of sex, are we really so sexually repressed as a nation? Has this oppression quieted our discourse or desire? As Foucault says:

Never have there existed more centers of power; never more attention manifested and verbalized; never more circular contacts and linkages; never more sites where the intensity of pleasure and the persistency of power catch hold, only to spread elsewhere.

Some?talk?about how we shouldn’t lick feet for sexual gratification (or otherwise). According to?Dan,?we shouldn’t offer them for the licking either. Others say we shouldn’t display sex in our living rooms. According to Doug,?if?we do,?we should certainly shield our guests from it by drinking tea in the kitchen.??

To apply?Foucault’s theory?to?Doug and Dan, we see that the?sexual premise of their writing claims certain behaviors?must be?repressed. Meanwhile, writing about?various aspects of sexuality?has rallied attention?around their ponderings. This, in turn, has produced a discourse at the symposium, here in my blog, and soon to be in class (and maybe even in those segregated bathrooms in Albertus Hall). Each author has become a center of power, publicly sharing their sex with an audience. How freakin’ weird is THAT! Thanks to Foucault, we now know what?Doug and Dan?are REALLY doing, even if they don’t realize it themselves.

(Am I going to be expelled for this?)

According to Michel Foucault in The History of Sexuality, the analysis and discourse performed in?an attempt?to control and suppress sex are the very forces that?give power to the topic.

.
<–oppression
leads to
obsession–>
.

In Religious Practice:
Foucault says that classification of sexual behavior and thought, in order to regulate its restriction, brought about a discourse that never existed prior.?Breaking through the silence and addressing sex could have been a good thing had it been approached differently. Unfortunately, to place judgement on people via Christianity’s religious categories of deviance?produces a dangerous?symptom of this type of discourse. To?oppress and classify?heightens the awareness of deviant behavior, and that awareness gives power to its existence. (Here I?say “deviant” in terms of what the church considers sinful versus virtuous.) We study which behavior is decidedly wrong, bringing it to the forefront of our consciousness. This exposure certainly explains the existance of sexual deviants?sometimes known as priests. (Here I?say “deviants” in terms of those who seek pleasurable behavior at the expense of another.)

As?Practice of a Nation:
Beyond religion, the?state too focuses on sex and categorizes behaviors. Population studies, with effects as imposing as religion,?promote a respectful?family life.?A respectful?family life?produces?a respectful?national citizenship, resulting in economic and political gain. This may be true in a general sense, but there are instances where this ideology?has little relevancy to the state of affairs in America today.?

A Silly Scenario?where Foucault? Falls Short:
In his first term as president select, George W. Bush?pushed health coverage for federal workers to include Viagra,?but not birth control.?The?hypothetical outcome of this strange (one could say “idiotic”) thinking?would produce?a population of walking erections pulsing with libidinal energy?in close proximity to?a?population of fertile wombs. I think the bastard’s plan was to send all congressional women home pregnant, requiring that they check their shoes at the door on the way out. But that’s just me.?

This is what happens when church and state get tossed into the blender. Religion and government regulation do not mix in regard to sex. Viagra certainly does nothing to promote?strong family units where they don’t already exist. Foucault’s logic,?as it applies to the state, doesn’t fit this scenario because not all men are married, and not all men are heterosexual. Religiously speaking it fails as well. Bush was promoting an unnatural sexual energy for men, elevating their urges and casting their thoughts into a sinful realm. (Perhaps those who were struck with heart attacks were simply facing the same heavenly punishment homosexuals experienced with AIDS?- NOTE: I say this with the utmost sarcasm.) It’s not like?Bush added a marriage clause to the allowance of distribution. March on ye Christian Soldier…

In Favor of Foucault:
To consider social categorization and the implications of the practice, one can move beyond the topic of sex.?

THE CASE: Two years ago, in the New York?Second Circuit Court of Appeals, I heard a case against the NYS Police Department. A person suffering from depression attempted to end?her life but, before?she died, she had a change of heart and called the police.?Because the police were involved, they classified the call under the Mental Hygiene Law as an “arrest.”??Lawyers argued, using the Americans with Disabilities Act, that a systemic?replacement?of “arrest”?with “custody” would better serve without the stigma.

THE INJUSTICE: With the help of medication, the woman has since overcome her depression. Unfortunately, she?has not?overcome the label. When applying for a job, she cannot legally avoid the application question, “Have you ever been arrested?” Appearing in background checks, it has hindered her progress.?The judges were quick to say that?mental health arrests?are different than criminal arrests.?When the judges were asked if, in her shoes, they would be lying to say, “No, I have never been arrested,” they saw the point. Additionally, for her to correct those who assume?her record is?criminal divulges?medical information that, by law, is?supposed to be shielded by doctor/patient confidentiality. I was floored when the defence said on behalf of the State Police?that computer systems would require an inconvenient amount of updating and the programs were not easily adjusted system-wide. The people within the system seemed unwilling to change categorization procedure and were angry over the inconvenience.?

I find this example of classification as a?limitation of language?more pertinent than Foucault’s use of Jouy (see below).?There is no question of this woman’s innocence,?and yet?the consequences of her label have effected the rest of her life.

THE OUTCOME: This woman and many people like her are now persecuted by the law that is supposed to protect. The panel of 3 judges believed that?”arrest”?was a term worthy of examination. They deliberated for several weeks. Although they agreed that?”arrest” isn’t applicable, their verdicts contradicted each of the others in the areas of how and why. Because there was no consensus on the issue, this woman suffers the same plight she did?prior to?arguing her case. In my estimation, these judges?saw the case as nothing more than an intellectual and philosophical exercise, without consideration of the?impact they had on living, breathing people. The system failed and the judges were…

Speaking of Idiots:
Foucault’s example of Jouy,?the simple man from Lapcourt (Is he making this up?), is one of?mimicry.?Jouy exchanges spare change for caresses from a young girl?, a practice?he’s seen?take place?in the village square.?Foucault says that to categorize his?motivation as “deviant” is wrong while the behavior itself is not. If Jouy doesn’t have the sense God gave a?puppet –> to adhere to the rules of society, condemning him for having desire does seem unfair.?

This leads to a more serious question of Foucault’s thinking. Are caresses simply caresses, or is Foucault falling into the trap of code-speak. One can imagine what a game of “curdled milk” entails and yet Foucault labels it?”petty” (1656). I don’t see this as inconsequential. In fact, it makes me not like Foucault. In the acceptance of this?behavior as the basis for his theory, is?Foucault implicating the girl for?being?an “alert” child (1657) and for selling her wares? (I can speak in code too, Foucault.) It certainly sounds like it. Foucault seems more concerned in the label and study of the man while the village game of curdled milk is discarded. There is something very wrong with this line of classification too.