i hope the new title clears things up a bit.
so i’ve got an interesting idea for a piece on foucalt from reading the history of sexuality. the starting point is something about how making sex a secret makes it something desirable; thus, anyone that has specific knowledge about sex has some amount of leverage over those that want to know (and because it’s a secret, everyone wants to know).
essentially, through secrets becoming well-known (the publicity of people being gay, etc), everyone becomes oppressed through their own doing; it is sort of an implied “everyone wants to know” that causes people to willingly give up this private info and bring the oppression on themselves. (other foucault interpretations would be interesting to read, i think i covered, in a nutshell, most of what i gathered)
one sentence from page 138 struck me: Now it is over life, throughout its unfolding, that power establishes dominion; death is power’s limit, the moment that escapes it; death becomes the most secret aspect of existence, the most “private.”
this privacy of death is only in place because people don’t want to be reminded of their own mortality. my idea stems from exploring how the privacy of death is the last bastion of hope that people have; however, even though this is the last chance at privacy, it is also when interpersonal contact can be most important.
what it looks like is that people are weakening themselves through denying themselves emotional support and precious human “soundboards” to talk out their feelings of being confronted with mortality and human-ness.
the other book that i’m planning to utilize for support is one i picked up on a trip abroad, i managed to read about a 1/3 of it so far how we die
if any of you have read it, i’m sure your input would be invaluable in citing supporting ideas that i may have missed.
i’m not quite sure what to propose as a solution or even a band-aid for this situation. is this something that i would want to leave without a resolution so that the reader is left to ponder?
After reading Foucault’s Pendulum I came out with an idea that “he who keeps a secret has power.”
is there any chance that umberto eco had michael faucault and his thought in mind when writing foucault’s pendulum?
is this a mystery to be uncovered? lol
Well, people have been saying that “Knowledge is power” for thousands of years, so the idea in-and-of itself isn’t anything new. It is just the formulation – though the way I understood it is that by keeping secrets we ultimately give others power over us, because if anyone knows our own secrets, they have a good deal of power over us (blackmail). At least in terms of practical application.
With more generalized things like sex, it is just an exchange, in this case of information for something else. Swapping one totem of power for another isn’t anything too earth-shattering.
after reading through my post a day later, i notice that i did seem to leave a little out of my synopsis of foucault’s work (what i’ve read, anyway). essentially, it is just what you’re saying xunzian: by giving away these secrets, people seem to willingly give away control over themselves.
with this, people are losing privacy and have little to nothing to themselves any longer, almost everything is starting to become public information. the only things that are not made spectacles of are disease and death: people would rather not be reminded that they’re human and thus, mortal. because of this, people are left alone to deal with the realization that they are mortal - fortunately or not, this is not a favorable position for most people to be in: man is a social animal.
the last part is what i’m really focusing on as the head-scratching, chin-rubbing portion to inspire the firing of neurons.
i did get this put together… although, i think i made a few pretty weak connections in the first half. i would really appreciate any criticisms you people may have; there is a philosophy conference coming up in minnesota that i would like to propose something for, and this feels like one of my sharpest works short of a piece i wrote early in my junior year at college it is kind of long
i’ll post it up tonight when i get a chance, i don’t think i can do any webpage editing unless i’m at home (from my assigned ip?)
sorry for the delay, i was at the library a bit later than usual. an assignment for my philosophy seminar course inspired this; we were told to choose a sentence from foucault’s history of sexuality and run with it… anywhere. enjoy, and email or pm me anything that you think is weak, unconnected, faulty, or otherwise disagreeable; you are my first real audience.
“Now it is over life, throughout its unfolding, that power establishes dominion; death is power’s limit, the moment that escapes it; death becomes the most secret aspect of existence, the most ‘private.’”
With the organization of men into civil societies, there came a need that had not existed prior to the society, a need of leadership - someone to constantly look out for the best interests of the entire society. It is the duty of the leaders to look out for the best interests of the ruled. Being power hungry, as all people who get a taste of it become, leaders from the beginning have worked towards having closer control over the populations.
Eventually, the church (and with it, the governing body) would declare sex to be a sin that would make the god/s angry. Because of the great fear of the unknown that the general public had, they trusted these statements. Who are they, the lowly humans, to question the priests that communicate directly with the god/s? Even so, the leaders determined that it was essential to "educate" the public about the dangers of sex (sin). By convincing the populous of the hatred that the god/s have for anything sexual: intercourse, masturbation, or even "impure" thoughts about other members of the opposite sex; the religious leaders had created a fear of performing any sort of sexual act anywhere and at anytime... except where it was declared acceptable - the married man and woman's bedroom.
After branding all sorts of sexual activity as "sin," religious leaders could offer to absolve people of their sins through confession. Thus, the officials that people confess to would have information about how the public was engaging in sex. "There was a steady proliferation of discourses concerned with sex... a discursive ferment that gathered momentum from the eighteenth century onward" that only server to further oppress the lower classes' pleasure (Foucault 18 ). Due to the growing interest of the church in the sexual lives led by the populous, it was commonly accepted that a confession was not complete without: "description of the respective positions of the partners, the postures assumed, gestures, places touched, caresses, the precise moment for pleasure - an entire painstaking review of the sexual act in its very unfolding" (Foucault 19).
"Was this transformation of sex into discourse not governed by the endeavor to expel from reality the forms of sexuality that were not amenable to the strict economy of reproduction: to say no to unproductive activities, to banish casual pleasures, to reduce or exclude practices whose object was not procreation?" (Foucault 36). It seems most likely that this was one of the purposes of trying to reduce sex in the working class to the lowest amount possible. In hopes of lowering the number of mouths to feed in a community, the most obvious way is simply to limit the production of new mouths.
Further, by developing a sort of control over the propagation of intercourse and who breeds with whom, the rulers would be better able to keep themselves in power by reducing the spread of genes. In this way, declaring that someone should be king/queen because they have royal blood isn't entirely fantastic. The ruling class, by coordinating with the church, has "constitute[d] a body and sexuality for the bourgeoisie to ensure the 'vigor, longevity and descent of the classes that ruled' " (Smart 100).
With control over the messages that tell the public what to think, the religious and political leaders could influence the reproductive habits of the masses. Through the use of permits, licenses, marriages and confessions, the few members of the medical, governmental and religious communities were able to have say in the mating practices of the masses, not just an influence.
Laws governing the actions of people: buying and selling, stealing, murder, conflicts, livestock, land, etc set limitations that prohibited people from stepping outside of the set boundaries... lest they be on the receiving end of punishments dubbed appropriate by the governing body. With the authority either support of the masses or the church behind the governing body, rules would be followed and punishments accepted. Control over death is the outcome of all these restrictions and punishments.
By insisting all forms of sex other than intercourse between husband and wife to be sinful, the church had started to bury nearly all talk of sex. As sex is a biological act and the medical community is the recognized expert of biology, when "educators and doctors combatted children's onanism like an epidemic that needed to be eradicated," it got the attention of parents and people in power (Foucault 42). However, "what this actually entailed, throughout this whole secular campaign that mobilized the adult world around the sex of children, was using these tenuous pleasures as a prop, constituting them as secrets (that is, forcing them into hiding so as to make possible their discovery)" (Foucault 42). Perhaps as much as the actions of the church, the attempts of parents, teachers and medical professionals to stifle the "sexual" play of children helped to make all forms of sex for anyone of any age at anytime and anywhere into something improper. From these actions, all forms of sex, a perfectly natural, normal and essential activity had been made into something that could only be spoken about in hushed tones and in close company.
These characteristics are characteristics not just of sex, but also something else that has been used throughout much of history to control and influence the masses: death. Where sex has been stigmatized as dirty, often unproductive and dangerous, death "remains a hidden secret, as eroticized as it is feared" (Nuland xv). I believe that this is the case because it, like sex, is something that is natural, essential and unavoidable.
I find the use of "eroticize" to be interesting in this sentence. It seems to refer to the way that people look at death: as something that marks the end of a struggle (as with the death of a person with a terminal illness) and as the necessary prick that causes people to come to terms with and get a glimpse at the Real (I find the end of Click to illustrate this nicely), but also as something that they aren't supposed to acknowledge publicly. It is something that people want to see more of and know more about, "whether to anticipate the events of our own final illness or [to better] comprehend what is happening to a mortally stricken loved one," however, death is also something that people are simply afraid to say anything about, much like sex (Nuland xv).
Religious leaders have tried to lock sex up in the parental bedroom - they have brought shame upon a natural (and necessary) act for their own purposes. Governing bodies continue, in modern societies, to hold a grip on sexuality by requiring official documents (marriage licenses) that give permission to copulate; thus, requiring one to honestly divulge some of the more confident information that they would rather keep private. In complying with some of these simple requests for data, everyone that does so is accepting the shackles that hold their sexuality. According to Foucault, "if I tell the truth about myself... it is in part that I am constituted as a subject across a number of power relations which are exerted over me and which I exert over others" (Foucault-b 39).
"We have created the method of modern dying. Modern dying takes place in modern hospital, where it can be hidden, cleansed of its organic blight, and finally packaged for modern burial" (Nuland xv).
With secrecy being used for so much of civilized history for the purposes of control and oppression of the simple pleasures of sex, the secrecy that surrounds death is for a different purpose. As citizens of a world where virtually anything has become possible and new discoveries being made everyday, "we seek ways to deny the power of death and the icy hold in which it grips human thought" (Nuland xv). Yet, no matter how hard we try, collectively, death is still a part of all of our lives as humans. By hiding death in hospitals where only doctors and the closest family can witness it (and sometimes only a nurse), society is attempting to forget about death. If the old saying "out of sight, out of mind" can be used anywhere, this seems to be the most appropriate place.
Unfortunately, this is where the greatest damage is being done. By keeping death locked away in a small room with a dim bulb in a deserted corner of a hospital, we are creating the illusion of "death with dignity," and by hiding death in the darkest corners of hospitals, the illusion of "death with dignity" can be maintained (Nuland xvi). What the rest of society doesn't see is that death is often anything but dignified.
It is considered to be less than good taste to discuss someone's death in any company other than the that of the funeral director. What this doesn't acknowledge, however, is the emotional impact that death can and will have on anyone near-by.
“Only by a frank discussion of the very details of dying can we best deal with those aspects that frighten us the most. It is by knowing the truth and being prepared for it that we rid ourselves of that fear of the terra incognita of death that leads to self-deception and disillusions” (Nuland xvii).
In an attempt to maintain a serenity without any blemishes or unhappiness, society continues to keep death out of sight, preventing the world from witnessing the “series of destructive events that involve by their very nature the disintegration of the dying person’s humanity” (Nuland xvii).
This secrecy of death doesn’t serve to provide any power over people, it only serves to weaken them. Here is when all people must come face to face, not just with death, but their own mortality. This is perhaps the most severe shock that any person will ever endure, and possibly the most gripping and intense glimpse of the Real that anyone will ever see.
the books referenced are linked to earlier in this thread… i think there is one missing, i’ll do some looking around for the bibliography i put together too.
thoughts?
well, i did a little revising to this piece in the last few weeks… hopefully i cleared up some of the unnecessary confusion and ambiguity. i did leave a bit for the purpose of questions and debate; what is philosophy good for if not inciting discussion?
i will be presenting the modified version at a conference april 14 at st cloud state university - i’ll try to find a link for more info
Fear and fascination go together, and for peace of mind we should have neither regarding sex and death. This is only a way of avoiding the real potential intimacy possible when these outward manifestations of life are placed into perspective by a realization that we are sacred beings whose purpose is the attainment of wisdom and the creation or growth of a soul through Reason and Love.
The quoted author has no conception of what real humanity is in the highest sense. Humanity is the highest essence of a person, not merely their apparent human form and its abstract constituents. Benighted authors will write any rubbish for money, and speak of a sacred human being as if they were an object ready for the trash.
They trade in our fascination for and fears of things not even worth discussing if the many were on a spiritual path where love has no place for fear and death is a blessed and sacred event.
i don’t think you grasp exactly what nuland is implying in his book.
what you said is just what he means, that we should be looking at death, not as a gruesome end, but as an unexplored necessity of life that is feared because it is not understood. the problem seems to be something that orbits around the “need” to gauge one’s life by the tangible goods that they have acquired, and not the level of understanding or interpersonal discoveries that accompany everyday of our lives.
i think nuland is trying to explain away the secular humanism that he sees taking over the first world nations - he wants to revert to a state where death is something embraced and feared… but not with the kind of fear that seems to be driving the pharmaceutical approach to getting older.
what i was trying to do with my essay is explain that both sex and death have horrible, undeserved stigmas attached to them that make them difficult to talk about, even though they must be discussed if we (as a nation and a world) are to function comfortably and flourish in harmony with each other. i know that last part sounds a bit touchy-feely/mushy, but i think it’s the best way to look at the state of affairs the first-world is leaving.