Dot, 4/16

I found Thursday's discussion of Foucault to be very enlightening, not only did it introduce the class to some amazing concepts, but it greatly clarified his essay and allowed me to see some things which I did not catch in the reading. 

I was particularly taken by his quote "our society is not one of spectacle, but of surveillance" and found it significant not only to understand his greater message, but also in interpreting certain faucets of our culture. Before reading this quote, I had never really thought too much about our culture's obsession with watching and observing other people. I have of course wondered why there are so many reality television shows and why people love to read celebrity gossip magazines, but I have never before considered the underlying meaning of such an infatuation. I believe that our all members in our society like to feel as though they are in some position of power, something that watching others definitely gives. When we view others, we feel as though we have some sort of privileged insight into their private lives and with these "secrets" are convinced that we are more important than others who may not know the "secrets". 

We all know, some more consciously than others, that there is a power higher than us that controls us. Because of the ideological and repressive state apparatuses that are at work in our society, we know that we can never fully be in charge of our own lives and because of this seek power in any way we can, usually in the form of inspecting others. We must, however consider that all people are in some way inspecting others and at the same time being inspected themselves... so really there is a never ending circle of surveillance at work in our society. I think that Foucault would agree that this continuous surveillance plays a big role in every aspect of our culture, especially the hierarchical configuration.