sex, power, religion

[fuse]

In his work “The History of Sexuality,” Foucault discusses discourse and power in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries when there was a policing and control over where and when sex could be discussed. Arenas of discussion and silence became clearly defined. Yet, even as its suitability and appropriateness was increasingly restricted to certain social relations, there was a “multiplication of discourses concerning sex in the field [and] in the exercise of power itself” (Foucault). The Church was a major articulation of power which sought increasingly to characterize and define sexual desire as sin and, above all, proliferate its “scheme for transforming sex into discourse” and run “everything having to do with sex through the endless mill of speech” (Foucault). I see parallels here between Foucault’s observations of the transformation of sex into discourse and Greenblatt’s concept of “recording.” Both are tactics that power employs to “explain away” worries and fears that might otherwise lurk indefinable and burdensome in the back of the mind agitating its every thought. These tactics are not so different from those people use on a daily basis; e.g. we often try to give definite shape and form to our worries and fears by writing/talking/explaining them out so that they appear less intimidating to confront. Furthermore, Foucault’s discussion of Christianity’s (power’s) obsession with sex is truly reminiscent of Nietzsche’s critique of Christianity in “Twilight of the Idols.” There Nietzsche writes,

@Twilight of the Idols

The church fights passion with excision in every sense: its practice, its “cure,” is castratism. It never asks: “How can one spiritualize, beautify, deify a craving?” It has at all times laid the stress of discipline on extirpation (of sensuality, of pride, of the lust to rule, of avarice, of vengefulness). But an attack on the roots of passion means an attack on the roots of life: the practice of the church is hostile to life.

The same means in the fight against a craving — castration, extirpation — is instinctively chosen by those who are too weak-willed, too degenerate, to be able to impose moderation on themselves […] Radical means are indispensable only for the degenerate; the weakness of the will — or, to speak more definitely, the inability not to respond to a stimulus — is itself merely another form of degeneration.

What I take from Nietzsche and Foucault is the idea that those in power who cannot control (moderate) their own passions / desires / lust seek to impose their own controls on the passions and desires of others. Because they do not trust their own abilities of self-control, so they do not trust the abilities of others. Chastity, Abstinence, Purity, Censorship (Rated-R movies for sexual content) - all Christian values and campaigns. “It is no surprise that the more fundamentally religious people are the more they are sexually repressed especially in relation to nudity and sexuality.” (examiner.com/examiner/x-8928 … -sexuality) The rest of the article isn’t particularly relevant. But do you think the statement above is true?

[Faust]

It’s not because they don’t trust themselves - not that by itself, that is. These religious dicta have been promoted as a tool for social control. But it’s not about sex, per se, but about property. The Abrahamic religions were developed in times and places where secular government was not as capable of social control.

Insofar as we are talking bout the Abrahamic tradition, that statement is not so much true as it is a truism.

Nietzsche was speaking in a context wider than sexuality, of course.

[Juggernaut]

@fuse

In his work “The History of Sexuality,” Foucault discusses discourse and power in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries when there was a policing and control over where and when sex could be discussed. Arenas of discussion and silence became clearly defined. Yet, even as its suitability and appropriateness was increasingly restricted to certain social relations, there was a “multiplication of discourses concerning sex in the field [and] in the exercise of power itself” (Foucault). The Church was a major articulation of power which sought increasingly to characterize and define sexual desire as sin and, above all, proliferate its “scheme for transforming sex into discourse” and run “everything having to do with sex through the endless mill of speech” (Foucault). I see parallels here between Foucault’s observations of the transformation of sex into discourse and Greenblatt’s concept of “recording.” Both are tactics that power employs to “explain away” worries and fears that might otherwise lurk indefinable and burdensome in the back of the mind agitating its every thought. These tactics are not so different from those people use on a daily basis; e.g. we often try to give definite shape and form to our worries and fears by writing/talking/explaining them out so that they appear less intimidating to confront. Furthermore, Foucault’s discussion of Christianity’s (power’s) obsession with sex is truly reminiscent of Nietzsche’s critique of Christianity in “Twilight of the Idols.” There Nietzsche writes,

@Twilight of the Idols

The church fights passion with excision in every sense: its practice, its “cure,” is castratism. It never asks: “How can one spiritualize, beautify, deify a craving?” It has at all times laid the stress of discipline on extirpation (of sensuality, of pride, of the lust to rule, of avarice, of vengefulness). But an attack on the roots of passion means an attack on the roots of life: the practice of the church is hostile to life.

The same means in the fight against a craving — castration, extirpation — is instinctively chosen by those who are too weak-willed, too degenerate, to be able to impose moderation on themselves […] Radical means are indispensable only for the degenerate; the weakness of the will — or, to speak more definitely, the inability not to respond to a stimulus — is itself merely another form of degeneration.

What I take from Nietzsche and Foucault is the idea that those in power who cannot control (moderate) their own passions / desires / lust seek to impose their own controls on the passions and desires of others. Because they do not trust their own abilities of self-control, so they do not trust the abilities of others. Chastity, Abstinence, Purity, Censorship (Rated-R movies for sexual content) - all Christian values and campaigns. “It is no surprise that the more fundamentally religious people are the more they are sexually repressed especially in relation to nudity and sexuality.” (examiner.com/examiner/x-8928 … -sexuality) The rest of the article isn’t particularly relevant. But do you think the statement above is true?

The behavior of social forms when protecting their privilage should never be confused with natural morality…Much of what Nietzsche says of the church is true enough, and rather than talking about anything, they were resistent to talk of any sort…From Reading Galileo, people had to apply for a licence to publish, which meant that the church was over every writer’s shoulder…The thing is, that while government and church will blow sand up every ass if you let them, that will only work for a time…If the form does not work, sooner or later words are not enough to resist the will for change…