Femininity a Sacrafice?

Bartky starts her argument by sayinf a woman has to make sacrifices to be a feminist. They have to change everything they are for the cause. They have to play the victim of sexism for their cause and I think this is wrong. I understand her argument about being a victim, after all if there were not some sort of injustice their would be no cause, but to "radically alter our consciousness"? I believe in equal treatment of women and if I ever find myself in a situation where I am discriminated against because I am a woman you can bet that I will fight the injustice. Forgive me woman kind but I will not however lose all sense if myself in that fight. I believe that every woman has a right to act how they want in regards to feminist behaviors. The book talks about women being alienated from their bodies to be objectified and I think this only happens when a woman allows it to. This fight for equal treatment starts with each and every women acting responsibly and deserving respect. If respect is not commanded through action by a majority of individuals the whole gender will suffer the unfairness. The book does not account for, at least in the reading I have done so far, every woman acting responsible in society to better the world view of what a woman is. Feminists may fight for the cause but until all women act for themselves I do not think the injustice will go away.

Colonized Prisoners

After colonization the nation is still at rest. Fanon argues that the indigenous people are never really a part of the new colony. The colonists are always looking for new ways to oppress the colonized, use the colonized, or keep the colonized out of their new society. Even after the colonized people revolt the proletariat stamp out the threat and do nothing to alleviate the tension. The proletariat, which Fanon says is anyone who benefits from the new settlement, encourages the separation from the indigenous people through negative propaganda, police repression, traditions ridiculed, elders discredited, and land taken. Even when the people revolt the colonists have more power and kill the uprising by killing the leaders. To me this sounds like prison. In Foucault's book about discipline he describes prison as a place that keeps people separate, discourages organization, strong police presence to scare and stamp out uprisings and more similarities. No person should feel like a prisoner in their own community. In fact prison would seem better than what these people had to put up with. At least in prison everyone was on a level playing field and there was a chance of getting out of the system.

Foucault's 7 steps to a Successful Prison

1) Transform Behavior 2) Isolation/separation 3) Punishment of individuality 4) Work
5) Education 6) Qualified Staff 7) Supervision
Foucault rationalizes that a successful prison is one that is free to function as it sees fit in the best interest of the prisoner's rehabilitation process. I would agree with this. Unfortunately there are so many unsuccessful prisons in the US because this is not the case. Foucault himself acknowledges the fact that prisons create delinquents through their various constraints. I find that today this is especially true. Punishment is currently subject to a judicial system that, in my opinion, is too soft on offenders. Prisons are so overpopulated that the 7 successful prison guidelines could never be fully realized, not to mention the dwindling funding for prisons. Instead prisons serve more as a purgatory type place between crimes. A prisoner commits a crime, serves their time, then is released just to commit more crime. 67% of released criminals commit crimes within three years of their incarceration according to a NY Times article. (http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/03/us/study-shows-building-prisons-did-not-prevent-repeat-crimes.html?pagewanted=1) If prisons were free to punish criminals according to their crime, violence, behavior, or whatever maybe this rate would be lower. It is not the prisons fault that crime rates are so high and criminals are not being reformed, it is the systems fault. Until the judicial system fixes its laundry list of flaws Foucault's ideal prison/discipline model will never be realized and prisons will never be effective.

Conditioning Foucault Style

I find this text hard to understand and follow. I believe what is being said is how humans are conditioned to do certain actions. He gives the example of the soldier being able to hold himself as a solider and be respected. I think the point of this is to explain how people react when they are given a job or put in an environment. If a soldier is thrust into battle he is going to figure out how to use his gun out of survival. Soldiers were taught to march and act orderly, a form of conditioning. By giving each person a job the whole functioned better. This is kind of different than today because of the fact that soldiers are not held to the same standards. Marching is a less important skill to have on today's battlefields, weapons have changed, and the stigma of being a soldier have changed. Soldiers are no longer looked at as rare public heroes until they are killed in action, which is a shame. They do not go everywhere in uniform, and they don't see being a soldier as a glory filled position, it is a job.

*4/14/10- After more thought and consideration from class I understand better. The point is about conditioning of humans and how order dictates behavior. I still do not think this is as strict of a factor today compared to a hundred, even fifty, years ago. Soldiers are drilled hard core but they have to be much more diversified today. Current battle fields are not about lining up and shooting, they are about strategy, technology, skill, and improving positions with the least amount of exposure. Soldiers have to be trained in communications and most do not even see an actual battle field. While I understand the concept of discipline and the example I think Foucault needs to (if he is still around) address modern ways of discipline, like the teaching of technology.

Totalitarianism the Horror

Arendt explains that the best example of totalitarian rule is the concentration camps. That nothing else can ever be compared to the horror that occurred there because the Nazis made it so. Hitler outright said that he had to create a situation so unbelievably awful that people overlooked it as a lie to really get away with committing such atrocities. My friend works for a Jewish museum in Indiana where the director and founder of the museum is a concentration camp survivor. Recently she took my friend with her to the anniversary of the closing of the camp she was in in Poland. My friend, who has never had trouble talking about anything before, was speechless when I asked what it was like. She said that just being on the ground that such terrible things happened on was an indescribable experience. The isolation Arendt talks about in the book seems, to me at least, unfathomable. How can so many people be corralled in one place and not have any idea what is going on? Why did so many people overlook what was going on? How could so many people assist in these horrible things? My friend understood these when she came back from Poland. The only way she could describe it was the atmosphere; the pictures, the stories, the memories, they made her better understand what really happened.

Totalitarianism

As bad as I can imagine Totalitarianism to be, from what little I previously know about it, would suggest that everyone's common sense would agree that it is a bad thing. Yet it also seems to me that Russia is heading down that path again willingly. The book describes the Totalitarian movement as getting its power from the masses, which Russia has. Putin is pulling strings behind the scenes leading Russia down, what we would consider, a dark path. But the masses of Russia are OK with it, they know the hardship from the past decades and Putin has offered them relief so they are taking it. If history repeats itself Putin might very well lead like Stalin and the Russian people would go along with it. In fact Russians now see Stalin as a hero for the country despite all the horrible things he has done. Putin is breaking down the classes, like the book talks about, and the masses are responding by allowing him to keep expanding his power. Granted unlike Totalitarian leaders Putin cannot be readily replaced without his system and support falling apart, but his support is so great among the Russian people that his plans and ideals for the country are what is really bonding them all together. I just keep thinking of the Winter Olympics here. The Russians did pretty bad in all the areas they were expected to excel at so Putin fired the team management and coaches. With the next Winter Olympics being held in Russia Putin was worried about losing national pride in the team, which in turn means national loyalty. Totalitarian society is willingly accepted by those that live under those ideals whether we think they are right or wrong.

Marx on materializim

The idea of the worker as a commodity has never crossed my mind before. Marx makes the argument that people work to produce goods in order to get money. In effect they are selling themselves as labor and thus turning them into commodities. I have never thought of it like this but it is absolutely true. In a country where most of our industry has turned to service related industries people do have to sell themselves. People do it every day. While Marx was thinking more along the lines of hard labor workers, today's society still does the same thing. Every day when a business man puts on his suit it is because he has to sell himself to his employer or client. Sales people have to gain personal trust by selling their image and experience. Even looking at resumes as an example, they are basically just menus for employers to pick the best entree. It is this ideology, that people need to sell themselves to make the most money, that is perpetuating the problem of alienation among society.

Marx and develpoment

The bourgeoisie run the world. Marx spends the entire first chapter explaining how the rich are the reason for everything that happens because the rich control everything. He argues that our system is so unbalanced because the rich always have to change and adapt industry for their own self-interest. He seems to imply that this is a bad thing. I would disagree. While the bourgeoisie often exploit lower classes for labor, they are the ones who are pushing for development. I understand they are doing it for selfish reasons, Marx says that eventually the proletariat will overtake the bourgeoisie and they have to adapt for survival, but they are still the ones who are advancing society. Without some amount of greed among people there would be no incentive to work hard, develop new technologies, or make advancements in agriculture and medicine. Even when the proletariat take over for the bourgeoisie in order to stay on top and get ahead advancements have to be made. I think it is true that people are material based. All standards of life are measured on how much one owns. Marx says this is a bad thing and that class needs to be eliminated in order for people to live peacefully and happily. I disagree. I think a person is only as happy as they make themselves. People have a right to seek wealth, property, and family. Communism takes away this right. If people are limited in the amount of these things that they can have what incentive is there for them to work hard. And if people are not working hard everything else in society suffers.
In some respects I agree with Marx. The super rich should not have all the power and the poor should not be taken advantage of the way they are. I just think there are other ways of governing people so that everyone has a fair chance at the same liberties.

Rousseau on the expectations of people

Rousseau seems to have a lot of faith in people. His entire philosophy centers around the idea that people will give up their power to the whole because that is what is most beneficial to society. He argues that when people commit to sovereignty they agree to actively participate in the governing of the collective. Because everyone is exactly equal in the collective there is no motivation to act in a way other than what is best for the whole. While the system of government he refers to as sovereign is more of a democracy with full participation from its members, his overall view of an individuals responsibility to act is still relevant today in theory.
During the 2008 presidential election the US saw more political activism than ever before. People fought for who they thought was going to represent the whole in a way that was beneficial to all of its members. They used their rights under the social contract of this country to choose a leader. I think Rousseau would have been proud of the masses wearing the t shirts with the red and blue Obama images. The problem today with this philosophy is that after the election the masses disassembled. I would challenge many of those t shirt wearers to see weather or not they even voted in the election, if they knew the issues Obama represented, and if they even care now what is going on in politics. The race itself was such a cultural phenomena but when the race was over so was the interest in political participation. Without each individual acting in a way that is beneficial to the collective and participating in decision making for the whole, Rousseau's system falls apart.
He is right on some level. Every person does have an obligation, if they live in this society, to actively participate in the governing of said society. The problem is that most people do not participate, are not educated about issues concerning he governing of the whole, and do not care to take part in this agreed upon sovereignty. I would argue that if every individual in the populous does not participate in governing and therefore not acting in what is best for the collective, the collective has a right to limit the amount of influence and impact those people have on the whole. I feel this adjustment is needed to make Rousseau's philosophy relevant to the society we live in today.
Rousseau was from a different time and a different way of thinking. People today need to recognize their responsibility to participate in government. If more people were to act like Rousseau proposes I believe our government would better represent the people and there would not be so many problems in our society.

Locke on parenting

I believe Locke's views of parenting are not taken as relevant for today. Locke, in chapter 6, outlines the duties of a father and the freedom of children. He writes as if all children will obey their parents just because that is what is accepted as the right thing to do, and that is how it was during Locke's time, but not now. In paragraph 61 Locke explains that a child is "free" because of his fathers understanding and ability to reason and the child is obedient to the father. ("The freedom of a man at years of discretion, and the subjection of a child to his parents...") Early in the chapter Locke refers to the age of maturity being 21 as well. The problem I have with all of this, Locke's theory of obedience, is that today no child I know between the ages of 13 and 21 are compelled to act within the laws of nature because their parents do. I have worked with children for the past five years and some of them are just downright nasty. Most kids today do not respect paternal power, I have seen kids literally spit in the face of it in fact. It seems to me that today's kids are more conniving and use their ability to reason at a young age to take advantage of whatever bit of power they can. and This lack of respect for elders is not just kids fault either, there are a lot of bad parents out there too. Locke, in paragraph 67, actually says it is not in human nature to abuse their paternal power and I would strongly beg to differ.
Locke has a very idealistic way of looking at parenting and the role of a child. He assumes God's Spite is enough to make good parents, and he assumes kids will just obey for the sake of obeying. Society today has changed so much, children are more spoiled than ever before, respect for elders is disappearing, and paternal power is no longer a good argument for human nature being the only aspect that creates good children.